BREAKING NEWS: Directors demand museum attacks end
BREAKING NEWS: Directors demand museum attacks end
Unprecedented letter from museum leaders says art targeting 'has to stop'
— In partnership with Art UK's Visual Literacy Week
This edition also features: Science Museum unveils £65m Hawking Building | Leighton House’s centenary celebrations | Next Met Gala theme revealed
Happy Friday.
What do you think of the latest Turbine Hall commission at Tate Modern?
When I first saw the images after its unveiling on Tuesday, I did shrug. At first glance it looked to me like it was the third year on the trot where an artist had decided hanging some cloth from the ceiling was the best they could offer for one of the world’s most famous art commissions.
And yes, I know there is/was love for both Cecilia Vicuña and El Anatsui’s attempts (I liked them too!) but THREE YEARS of suspending fabric from the roof? Really?!
But then reading the reviews of Mire Lee’s "gore-fest” installation Open Wound has warmed me to it. It sounds cool. The critics have praised the “melodramatic” and steam-punk vibes. That is, all critics except Adrian Searle in the Guardian who thought it more "hackneyed," "overcooked" and “tatty”. I’ll be seeing it this weekend so I will let you know whether he’s right.
But I still think it’s fair to say that the Turbine Hall’s annual commission has become a bit…same-y.
It used to be you could be genuinely surprised by what you would see. A massive in-your-face sun by Olafur Eliasson. Ai Weiwei’s vast field of ceramic sunflower seeds that boggled the mind at the scale of hand production involved. Or a full-on crack, drilled into the gallery’s foundations so deep the scars can still be seen today.
Big, bold, permanent.
Suspending floaty ‘things’ feels ironically like a lite-version of what has gone before. The past three years might be remembered by art world regulars, but Tate’s millions of visitors?
The gallery is a massive success story in getting vast audiences interested in contemporary art. And the Turbine Hall’s wow-factor played a huge part in that. For Tate Modern’s 25th anniversary next year, I hope the commission will be by an artist that takes inspiration from the enduring memory of those early installations. I hope they have an audacious plan. Just please god don’t tell them where the pulleys are.
— maxwell
— In partnership with Art UK's Visual Literacy Week
Art's role in driving visual literacy
Every primary-school aged child in Britain should to be taught the critical skill of visual literacy.
That's the verdict of art education charity Art UK, who have announced an ambition to make it a reality in the next five years.
By 2030, they aim to be helping ALL children learn the vital skills to decode the meaning of images.
Art UK Chief Executive Andy Ellis says they believe “that art can be a pathway to becoming visually literate in our digital age" and that these skills will "create confident, capable and empathetic young people."
It's why they launched Visual Literacy Week too, which sparked a national debate on visual literacy and was supported by artists including Bob & Roberta Smith and Rana Begum. It delivered articles, webinars and a symposium to encourage discussion around why visual literacy is so important.
You can discover more on what visual literacy means here — and you can discover Art UK's extensive resources on the subject too.
Need To Know
Museum targeting ‘must stop’
Attacks on museums and artworks by protesters such as Just Stop Oil “have to stop”, the leaders of all of Britain’s major museums and galleries have said.
In an unprecedented open letter through the National Museums Directors Council, the UK’s most senior leaders condemn the targeting of collections, saying that they “cause enormous stress for colleagues at every level of an organisation” and that visitors “now no longer feel safe visiting” venues.
The strong statement said they felt they had no choice but to speak out now after two attacks in two weeks at the National Gallery in London. The most recent this week saw Pro-Palestinian demonstrators target a Picasso painting in a protest over arms sales to Israel. Two were arrested.
“With each attack we are forced to consider putting more barriers between the people and their artworks” the letter states. It demands that “demonstrations now need to be taken away from our museums and galleries.” (Read more)
Science Museum honours Stephen Hawking
The Science Museum has officially opened their £65 million new collections building — and have named it after Professor Stephen Hawking.
The Hawking Building — a vast and innovative facility where Britain's Science Museum Group is caring for the nation’s science collection — is now available for the public to explore on special tours.
Over 300,000 historic objects have been carefully studied, digitised and installed into the new purpose-built building at the Science and Innovation Park in Wiltshire, after being transported from their previous long-term home at London's Blythe House.
Science Museum Group Director Sir Ian Blatchford said Hawking “became a great friend to the Science Museum Group and this is a fitting way to celebrate that life-long relationship.” The Professor’s son, Tim Hawking, said his family was "so grateful" to the museum for "taking such good care of the Stephen Hawking collection" which it acquired in 2021. The 1,000-strong collection is now based in the Hawking Building. (Read more)
“Spectacular” survival of medieval hall
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has hailed the “spectacular” restoration of one of Britain’s most at-risk heritage buildings.
The grade I-listed Calverley Old Hall which dates back to the 12th century has been ambitiously brought back from near dereliction by charity the Landmark Trust. The complex £5.1m project was made possible thanks to £1.75m from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, and was the Trust’s biggest ever restoration project.
On a visit, Reeves — who is the Hall’s local MP — said she looked forward to “seeing the revitalised building boosting both Calverley’s local economy and community activity in the years to come.”
The Hall’s restoration has fused the conservation of medieval fabric with contemporary design and brings the whole site into new use as a self-catering holiday accommodation and a community-use space. Income raised from these uses will support the Hall’s ongoing survival.
During the work, a stunning discovery of a near-complete chamber of magnificent wall paintings from c.1560 were discovered and have now been conserved. (Read more)
News from the UK
Entrance overhaul 🏛 | Turner Prize winners Assemble are in the running to design the British Museum’s new visitor entrances. They are part of one of five teams shortlisted to create welcome pavilions to replace the eye-sore security tents which have been in place for a decade. But the museum confirmed these pavilions would be temporary, with the decade-long Masterplan expected to include a more permanent new entrance system in the coming years. (Read more)
Strikes starting 🗳 | Security Guards at the Science Museum and Natural History Museum in London will strike in half-term over pay and sick leave. 96% voted in favour of the walkout. The United Voices of the World Union said their members — who are employed by a third party — protect priceless objects and millions of visitors but are “paid some of the lowest wages in the museum[s].” (Read more)
Tech treasures 🔬 | The secrets of hundreds of historical objects will be revealed each year thanks to a major new £1m hi-tech lab at Manchester Metropolitan University. Imaging, scanning, and x-ray technology will be made available to community groups, researchers and professionals alike, to examine their artefacts. Free at the point of use, it will be the most accessible centre of its kind in Britain. Due to open at the end of 2025, it’s funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. (Read more)
Century celebration 🎉 | London’s Leighton House museum has announced a two-year celebration beginning in 2025 to mark its centenary. It will start with an exhibition featuring contemporary artists from the Middle East and North Africa, followed by an in-depth show exploring the museum’s famous Arab Hall. In 2027 — the 100th birthday — there’ll be a major exhibition devoted to artist studio houses and museums, in collaboration with the Katrin Bellinger Collection.
Emergency repairs | Compton Verney has announced it needs to raise £150,000 to carry out urgent repairs on its gallery roof. They’re now asking the public to help with £50,000 towards the “huge and complex task” which they say they the costs they are “struggling to meet.” Meanwhile, they said a remarkable 17th century painting it saved for the nation in 2023 — due to its “highly unusual” depiction of a Black female sitter — has completed 18 months of conservation and will go on public display for the first time from November. (Read more)
— Enjoying the news this week? Why not support the future of the this newsletter so I can bring you the news every week?
News from around the world
USA 🇺🇸 | The theme for the 2025 Met Gala has been revealed. Held on the traditional first Monday in May, it’ll mark the opening of an exhibition on the style of Black men in the context of dandyism, from the 18th-century to now. Superfine: Tailoring Black Style will be a “groundbreaking presentation” on “the power of style as a democratic tool for rejecting stereotypes” according to the Met’s Director. The Gala will be chaired by Lewis Hamilton, A$AP Rocky and Pharrell Williams alongside Vogue’s Anna Wintour. (Read more)
Netherlands 🇳🇱 | A museum in Lisse has recovered an artwork that was thrown away by a lift technician who mistook it for rubbish. The 1988 work by Alexandre Lavet appear to be two empty beer cans. They are in fact hand painted artworks. After realising the works missing from their usual display space in a lift, they were found in a trash bag. The LAM Museum said they bear “no ill will towards the lift technician who made the mistake.” Maybe we should send him to Frieze? (Read more)
USA 🇺🇸 | Plans for an American outpost of the Centre Pompidou are back ON. Just months after New Jersey legislators pulled funding for the project, a new location has been found, and Jersey City’s mayor said he’s willing to keep pursuing this “once-in-a-generation opportunity.” He’s created a new 10-year plan to cover annual operating costs now estimated at $27.5 million. Yet the council meeting that resulted in a vote in favour of the plans was “rowdy”. Many are still against it. (Read more)
Netherlands 🇳🇱 | Former Dutch queen Princess Beatrix visited a new Andy Warhol exhibition in Apeldoorn — to see herself on the walls. The stately Het Loo Palace is the only European collection to own the complete set of the “diamond-dusted" versions of Warhol’s landmark Royal Edition prints of reigning queens (as they all were at the time). They’ve now gone on show — for the first time in 25 years — and Beatrix is one of the portraits. She abdicated in 2013. (Read more)
Best of the rest
Johnson’s mother | The paintings of Boris Johnson’s mother — artist Charlotte Johnson Wahl — are to go on display at Bethlem Museum of the Mind. The works were created when Johnson Wahl was a patient at a south London psychiatric hospital in the 1970s. (More)
Chair hunt | Prime Minister Keir Starmer has reopened the search for a new Chair of the V&A. It was re-advertised this week after two attempts under the previous government were abandoned. (More)
Mammoth task | A 38,000-year-old mammoth tusk — discovered in a British coal mine — has been given its annual comprehensive clean by Leeds Discovery Centre. Photos show the huge item, which proves mammoths were in Yorkshire, getting its check up. (More)
Unfunded words | Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has pledged to bring the government’s art collection works “out of the basement and into communities where they belong.” Unsurprisingly she didn’t say who was going to pay for it. (More)
Departures (re)discovered | The old Euston station departure board — replaced by a hated advertising screen — has been unearthed at a private Kent museum. It still shows Euston departures! The Science Museum and National Railway Museum both rejected opportunities to acquire it. (More)
Visual Literacy* | Art UK has announced a mission to help ALL children learn the vital skills to decode the meaning of images by 2030. Through art, it'll help "create confident, capable and empathetic young people." (More)
*This is sponsored content
👀 Last week’s most clicked news story | The British Museum’s Silk Roads exhibition has opened to rave reviews, but historian William Dalrymple says it’s misleading visitors.
— This newsletter is six years old! Donate now to keep it going through its seventh year!