Labour government would end “war on culture”
Labour government would end “war on culture”
Sir Keir Starmer pledges to take art across the country if they win power
This edition features: Naomi ninety minutes late | Largest American art donation | Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth sculptures revealed | Mark Rothko heading to Tate St Ives
Happy Friday.
So did you stay up to watch the Oscars?
In his acceptance speech for winning Best International Film, Jonathan Glazer thanked the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum for “their trust and guidance” in helping make the movie. The museum’s historians worked with Glazer’s team for three years to ensure details and depictions of the death camp were correct. Although of course anyone who has seen the film knows you never actually see the camp, and all the action takes place in the commander’s house where family life carries on just meters from the site of murder.
I thought the film extremely powerful. But then this week I visited Kamp Westerbork, the largest Nazi transit camp in the Netherlands and now a museum and memorial site. Here 107,000 Jews were transported to camps and all but 5,000 were killed.
Remarkably, a surviving commander’s house still stands here at the camp’s entrance. Not usually open to visitors, I was part of a special tour that was allowed rare access inside. As good as Glazer’s film is, it doesn’t come close. As you move between each room where traces of mundane domestic life can still be seen, it is truly unnerving. The message of the film made unimaginably real.
The three-storey house is now remarkably preserved in a giant glass box. It is a reminder that the preservation of objects — whether huge houses or tiny personal possessions — can often be our most powerful, most palpable, ways to remember the past. It is a museum visit I won’t be forgetting in a hurry.
— maxwell
Need To Know
Keir Starmer’s arts pledge
The “war on culture” in the UK would end with a Labour government, opposition leader Sir Keir Starmer pledged in a speech yesterday. He accused the governing Tories of thinking “working people don’t need culture.”
In a keynote speech to arts and culture leaders, Starmer pledged a raft of measures aimed at boosting access to the arts, including that a Labour government would “take art and culture across the country” by “working with national museums and galleries to put art where people are…in schools, hospitals, town halls, community centres and shopping centres.”
But the Labour leader warned the party would be unable to “turn on the taps straight away” if it wins power, as he faced questions about whether the plans would be backed by new funding.
The plans were supported by Damien Hirst who said he was “so happy that Keir Starmer and Labour are showing the initiative and recognising the importance of art and creativity for all young people…art has the power to change lives.” (Read more)
🔗 OPINION: I’ve never heard a Labour leader speak about the arts like Keir Starmer – now I hope words become action | 💬 Charlotte Higgins in the Guardian
Better late than never
Naomi Campbell was 90 minutes late to her own glitzy press event at London’s Dorchester hotel to launch her upcoming V&A exhibition. When she did arrive, a tearful Campbell said she was “overwhelmed and stressed out” as she feels “extra pressure, because everyone expects a great show from me”. Thankfully guests had a breakfast of smoked salmon and creamed wild mushrooms to keep them entertained while they waited for the supermodel.
The launch revealed the show’s subtitle — NAOMI: In Fashion — its sponsor — HUGO BOSS with whom Campbell recently launched a clothing range — and that the display will feature “around 100 looks and accessories” chronicling her career. A highlight will be the purple croc Vivienne Westwood shoes which caused her famous catwalk tumble in 1993.
Curator Sonnet Stanfill said that Campbell has been a hands-on collaborator and that “It’s not for us to tell Naomi’s story, we want her to tell her story.” That does rather beg the question what the point of having a curator is then. (Read more)
American art donation
The largest ever art donation to an American collage has been gifted to Seattle University. Richard “Dick” Hedreen’s entire collection — worth around $300 million — will be donated to the institution, including works by Willem de Kooning, Roy Lichtenstein and Lucian Freud.
The hotel and real estate developer, now 88, will also gift $25 million in seed funding to develop a museum to house the collection. Provisionally the university plans to name it the Seattle University Museum of Art. The collection of paintings, sculptures and photos will be transferred to the university once the gallery is built and ready to receive it. Auction house Christie’s said it was “one of the great collections in America” that “will be an incredible addition to the city of Seattle.”
The donation is being made in honour of Hedreen’s late wife Betty, who was also an important supporter of the Seattle Art Museum. But he opted for the University rather than the established museum to gift the works as he doesn’t “like the idea of the art being in storage.” (Read more)
News from the UK
Picked for the plinth | The 2026 and 2028 sculptures for Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth have been announced. Tschabalala Self's blue homage to a metropolitan woman of colour, and Andra Ursuța's resin sculpture of a horse and rider covered in a shroud have been chosen from a shortlist of seven that were on show at the National Gallery for the past month. The winners were picked by the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group, partly based on feedback from the public. (Read more)
Colston’s final home | The toppled statue of slave trader Edward Colston has today gone on permanent display at the M Shed museum in Bristol. Displayed on its side — and on the first floor — it’s been positioned so visitors will have to make the deliberate decision to see it. Extra security has had to be introduced in case it becomes the focus of more protests. (Read more)
Tetley troubles | Tetley Art Gallery has said plans to open in a new home in Leeds have collapsed. Last year the owners of the Tetley building said they would not be renewing the gallery’s lease and so a new venue was sought. Initial discussions "are no longer viable" according to a statement “due to the financial climate.” The organisation has pledged to continue their work under a new name and identity, but a permanent home seems unlikely for the foreseeable future. (Read more)
Detecting BS | A metal detectorist planted rare coins he’d bought on eBay and then faked their unearthing at a metal detecting rally. His fellow detectorists were immediately suspicious and if they hadn’t been, this ‘discovery’ would have changed English history. He was arrested and admitted planting them in the soil, saying he wanted “the fame and bravado that goes with it.” This week he was acquitted as there was no evidence the ploy was for financial gain. (Read more)
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News from around the world
USA 🇺🇸 | Major American museums are seeing a slower post-Covid recovery compared to other cultural industries. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York is still 26% below pre-pandemic attendance levels, while the Met and the Art Institute of Chicago are both 15% under. Yet audiences for pop concerts and sporting events have sky rocketed. (Read more)
France 🇫🇷 | The Picasso Museum in Paris has unveiled a total rehang of 400 artworks, including a new room dedicated to the artist’s former partner Françoise Gilot. Gilot — who died last year aged 101 — was shunned in France after splitting from Picasso, and it’s claimed he tried to sabotage her art career. The goal of the new display is to present Gilot as an artist in her own right “not just as a companion to Picasso” according to curator Joanne Snrech. (Read more)
Italy 🇮🇹 | Gold statues and jewellery made by the Italian sculptor Umberto Mastroianni have been stolen from an exhibition in northern Italy in a €1m heist. The items had been on display since December at the Museo d’Annunzio Segreto in Vittoriale degli Italiani, a hillside estate overlooking Lake Garda. In total, 48 pieces were plundered from the exhibition — on its penultimate day — including brooches, rings, and jewels from the 1950s and 1990s. (Read more)
Netherlands 🇳🇱 | HM King Willem-Alexander has opened the new National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam, stating that “knowing about the Holocaust is not optional. This museum shows us what happened.” The opening ceremony was disrupted by thousands of protesters who were angry at the presence of Israeli President Isaac Herzog. The museum tells the story of the the Holocaust in the Netherlands and is on the site of a former creche and college where 600 Jewish children were smuggled to safety from the Nazis. (Read more)
Best of the rest
Could it be you? | The British Museum needs five new trustees — 20% of the whole board. Applications close Sunday. Interestingly, the museum’s 275th anniversary in 2028 is flagged as an important year so expect more on that. (More)
Other Trustee news | Tate is also looking for four trustees to join its board, the Imperial War Museum three, and the National Portrait Gallery one. Will they all meet the Prime Minister’s approval?
Rothko Cornwall jaunt | For the first time, five of Mark Rothko’s Seagram murals will be shown at Tate St Ives in Cornwall. They’re currently on loan from Tate to Paris for the Rothko retrospective at Fondation Louis Vuitton. (More)
Green shoots of hope | Seedlings have sprouted from the rescued cuttings of the Sycamore Gap tree which was unlawfully felled last year. BBC News was granted rare access to the National Trust’s secret lab where they are being cultivated. (More)
Art or aliens? | A gleaming, silver monolith has mysteriously appeared on a hilltop near the town of Hay-on-Wye in Wales. Measuring about 10ft (3m) tall, its discovery has baffled locals, especially as the area is inaccessible by car. (More)
Boost your skills | Tickets to next month’s new conference for digital cultural professionals are selling fast. It’s your last chance to secure your place to learn from global experts such as those at the V&A and the Financial Times. (Book now)*
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ICYMI | Last week’s newsletter’s most read story: Row over 'woke' poster for Paris Olympic Games
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