What does Labour mean for museums?
Lisa Nandy is new culture secretary in victorious Labour government
This edition also features: Tristram Hunt’s wishlist for Labour | Tate Modern’s starring role in Labour victory
Happy Friday.
This is the first newsletter I am sending under a Labour government. It’s also the first Labour government since I’ve been old enough to vote.
To say it’s an historic day in Britain is an understatement. To say I am knackered typing this after staying up most of the night to watch the results come in, is a landslide understatement.
To my delight, this momentous transfer of power actually involved a starring role from the world’s most visited contemporary art museum. Following a watch party at Tate Modern, new Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer gave his victory speech at 4am in the gallery’s Turbine Hall. “We did it” the new PM said.
Starmer said of his emphatic win that the “sunlight of hope” is now “shining once again, on a country with the opportunity after 14 years to get its future back.” The celebrations were obviously good: by 5am the bar at Tate Modern had run out of booze.
Can it be a coincidence that not only was Tate Modern the biggest cultural project completed during the last term a Labour government won a landslide from opposition (we won’t mention the Millennium Dome)? Surely, it’s also not an accident he spoke of sunlight when the Turbine Hall’s most famous installation was Olafur Eliasson's giant 2003 sun sculpture The Weather Project. If it was a coincidence it’s certainly evocative.
Many people will hope it is symbolic of Labour’s commitment to arts and culture after 14 years of indifference and decline under the Conservatives. Although perhaps the history books will offer a more nuanced retelling — after all, Tate Modern wouldn’t be the size it is today without the support of David Cameron’s government who was the biggest funder of the 2016 extension. A discussion for another day.
All eyes from the sector will now be on the new Culture Secretary (more on that below). Yet with very little public money to splash around — and with many industries also in need of cash boosts — it’s hard to picture radical changes. But for many in museums and beyond, the change in government at least offers hope of a return to better days. Surely, things can only get better?
— maxwell
PS, as I hit send, breaking news that the Chair of the Natural History Museum, Sir Patrick Vallance, is to be made a peer and has been appointed to Starmer’s new government as Minister of State.
Need To Know
Hunt’s Labour hopes
V&A Director Tristram Hunt has said the new Labour government should offer “emergency financial support for regional museums facing bankruptcy.”
Hunt — who served as a Labour shadow secretary under Ed Miliband — made the comments to the Art Newspaper regarding his preferred priorities for the new Labour government.
He also said he’d like to see a “commitment to swifter and transparent trustee appointment processes” as well as “inclusion of museum and gallery infrastructure and maintenance in Green New Deal funding.” Interestingly, a policy he’s championed for a number of years — the reform of parliamentary legislation to allow national museums to deaccession objects from their collections — was missing from his wishlist.
Also speaking to the Art Newspaper, Art Fund Director Jenny Waldman called on the new administration to implement “a Museum Collections Bill that supports the sharing of collections.” Royal Academy head Axel Rüger wants “a greater recognition of the vital role of culture in the UK economy.” (Read more)
Lisa Nandy leads DCMS
Lisa Nandy has been promoted to Culture Secretary in Sir Keir Starmer’s new Cabinet. The role had been earmarked for shadow culture secretary Thangam Debbonaire but she was one of the few Labour candidated who lost their seat in yesterday’s election, beaten in her Bristol Central seat by Green Party leader Carla Denyer.
Nandy will now be in charge of national museum policy in England, as well as the wider culture and tourism briefs. Policy in the other UK nations is devolved.
The Director of Manchester Museum Esme Ward said she was “very excited by this appointment.”
Labour’s manifesto was light on cultural policy, although they promised to improve “access to cultural assets by requiring publicly funded national museums and galleries to increase the loans they make…to communities across the country.”
Perhaps the most interesting development to watch will be her stance on the status of the Parthenon Sculptures. Will she reverse the previous government’s opposition to the British Museum’s Chair attempts to come to an ‘agreement’ with Greece on the artworks — the Chair being a certain former Tory Chancellor George Osborne? And who is the museum’s local MP? A certain Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer. Get the popcorn. (Read more)
Reading Room returns
The British Museum has reopened its famous round Reading Room after 11 years of closure. From last Tuesday, visitors have been able to visit the 166-year-old architectural wonder like any other gallery.
The reading room was formerly home to what is now the British Library (the institutions split in 1997) and was accessible from 2000 until 2007. Then for six years it was home to temporary exhibitions. But since 2013 it has been out of bounds as the museum struggled to conceive of what to do with the space. Last year, the museum’s chairman George Osborne said the continued closure is “not acceptable,” and after that, weekly 20-minute weekly tours were introduced.
Curiously, despite being a much cherished space for Londoners and beyond, news of the room’s reopening has been muted from the British Museum, with no significant public announcements about the change of policy. Photography is also prohibited inside and is being strictly enforced. (Read more)
News from the UK
Swift summer 🎤 | Taylor Swift’s style will leave visitors to the V&A enchanted this summer as it’s announced a new exhibition of her clothes and personal items is to open at the London museum. Taylor Swift: Songbook Trail will see 16 looks worn by the megastar shown alongside music awards, storyboards and previously unseen items from Swift's archive, all in the form of a trail around the permanent galleries. (Read more)
Backing Baillie 🏴 | The National Galleries of Scotland (NGS) is sticking with its sponsor Baillie Gifford after a high profile campaign by activists saw the investment firm pull its vital sponsorship of a number of UK literally festivals. While other Edinburgh galleries such as the Fruitmarket bowed to pressure and axed financial support from the firm, NGS said its partnership with Baillie Gifford met its “strong ethical standards.” (Read more)
💬 OPINION | Protests against arts sponsorship in Britain are killing culture. Be careful what you wish for | Martin Prendergast in the Guardian
Stratospheric Barbie 🚀 | A Barbie that’s been into space has gone on public display for the first time in the Design Museum’s new exhibition on the famous doll. The Barbie is a likeness of Europe’s first female commander of the International Space Station (ISS) Samantha Cristoforetti, and it spent six months orbiting Earth with her in 2022. It can be seen alongside 180 other dolls that chart Barbie’s design evolution. (Read more)
Villas unveiled 🏛 | The National Trust has revealed two previously-unknown Roman villas on one of its estates. The Trust carried out a major survey — its largest ever — at its Attingham Park estate in Shropshire which encompasses part of the buried Roman city of Wroxeter. The villas were discovered alongside a Roman cemetery. Archaeologist Janine Young says it has “transformed our knowledge…of what is below our feet.” (Read more)
News from around the world
USA 🇺🇸 | Plans to build an outpost of the Pompidou Center in New Jersey are all but axed after state officials pulled $24 million of previously-agreed funding to the project. While rising costs were blamed for the cash being withdrawn, Jersey City’s mayor claims it’s retribution for his decision to withdraw support for the wife of the state governor who was running for the US Senate. While the mayor hopes a path forward can still be secured, he admits the original plans will not happen. (Read more)
France 🇫🇷 | Visitors will be able to “dive into a museum upside down” according to ‘troublemaker’ artists Elmgreen & Dragset who have announced a major new installation coming to Paris’ Musée d’Orsay this autumn. The artists are promising a “radical architectural intervention” which is “unlike anything the museum has ever shown.” Sculptural works will speak to topics linked to contemporary masculinities. Sounds intriguing. (Read more)
Indonesia 🇮🇩 | The oldest example of figurative art has been discovered on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island. The cave painting of a wild pig and three human-like figures is at least 51,200 years old, 5,000 years older than the previous oldest scene ever found. Unearthed by Australian and Indonesian scientists, they say “it is the oldest evidence we have for storytelling.” Brand new technologies allowed the dating, which could see other caves have their art re-dated as older than thought. (Read more)
Best of the rest
Emotional reopening | Bristol science museum We The Curious has reopened two years after a devastating fire forced it to shut. A senior staff member said it was a “really emotional” moment. (More)
Pillar pummelled | A Grade II listed pillar that’s over 240 years old has been knocked down for the 12th time in a decade. A tractor has destroyed it just months after it had to be rebuilt due to a similar incident, leaving villagers dismayed. (More)
Record breaking | The deep-pocketed J. Paul Getty Museum in LA has snapped up Quentin Metsys’s rediscovered 16th-century masterpiece Madonna of the Cherries at auction for £10.66 million. It’s a record for the artist. (More)
Inflation busting | Tickets for the (likely) biggest UK blockbuster of 2024 — Van Gogh at the National Gallery — have gone on sale. Adult tickets are an eye-watering £28. The new normal? (More)
Yeo’s ‘Borough | Jonathan Yeo went red for a portrait of HM the King, and now green for a new depiction of Sir David Attenborough. Assuming he’s aiming for the full traffic light, maybe next amber for Ed Davey? (More)
👀 Last week’s most clicked news story | "Hideous" redevelopment in Liverpool wins Carbuncle Cup 2024 for UK's worst building
📊 Last week’s poll results | Do you support Just Stop Oil's actions at Stonehenge?
✅ Yes 18% | ❌ No 82%
📩 Missed my recent newsletter? | 💬 Museums should unlock the benefits of AI — here are 3 ways to start
— This edition has no sponsor, which means I’ve received nothing for writing it — and it took 6 hours. If you’ve enjoyed it or found it useful, please consider a small donation. Thank you.