Olivier Cornet Gallery

The Olivier Cornet Gallery is a contemporary commercial art gallery located in Dublin, Ireland. Owned and operated by French-born gallerist Olivier Cornet, the venue serves as a significant platform for contemporary visual art in the Irish capital. Recognized for its collaborative ethos and its curation of compelling thematic exhibitions, the gallery maintains a regular schedule of solo shows and participates in broader cultural events like the annual Bloomsday festival. It is open to the public six days a week with free admission.

Olivier Cornet relocated to Ireland from France in the late 1980s. His early interest in art was shaped by collecting stamps featuring reproductions of works by famous French artists, as well as by his maternal grandmother's amateur painting practice. In the early 1990s, he completed his military service as a Cultural Animator at the French Cultural Centre in Lilongwe, Malawi, where organizing art exhibitions formed part of his official duties. After working as an assistant at the Metatron Gallery in Enniskerry, County Wicklow, Cornet began independently curating exhibitions across Dublin in 2004 under the pseudonym Olliart. He formally established the Olivier Cornet Gallery in 2012, initially situated in the Wooden Building in the Temple Bar neighborhood. The gallery later moved to 5 Cavendish Row before settling at its current address in 2015.

The gallery's program is defined by a strong emphasis on thematic and collaborative exhibitions. Irish Times critic Aidan Dunne has highlighted the gallery for curating good thematic shows, while the Irish Arts Review has noted its collaborative approach. These themed exhibitions frequently engage with contemporary socio-political issues, including climate change, the environment, identity, notoriety, and fake news. Additionally, the gallery curates an annual exhibition for Dublin's June Bloomsday festival, each year selecting a different theme related to James Joyce's novel Ulysses. The gallery also organizes touring exhibitions, such as the 2024 show What Do We Want, which addressed precarious global geopolitical situations and traveled to Belfast and Donegal, later being named one of the ten best exhibitions of 2024 by Irish Times critic Gemma Tipton.

The gallery represents a specific roster of contemporary artists, namely Annika Berglund, Hugh Cummins, Jordi Fornies, Conrad Frankel, Eoin Mac Lochlainn, Miriam McConnon, Yanny Petters, Kelly Ratchford, and Susanne Wawra. It has also exhibited work by the late Gerald Davis. Beyond its represented artists, the gallery maintains an associate gallery artists group, which includes Mary A. Fitzgerald, David Fox, Nickie Hayden, Sheila Naughton, and Vicky Smith. Artists featured in its touring projects include Jill Gibbon, Bernadette Hopkins, Manal Mahamid, Tom Molloy, and Gail Ritchie.