National Contemporary Art Gallery Wales Preliminary Feasibility Study & Options Appraisal July 2018 Client: Museums, Archives and Libraries Division (MALD), Welsh Government Event Authors: Lucie Branczik and Becky Schutt Revision no: 02 Date: July 2018 Event Communications Ltd India House 45 Curlew Street London SE1 2ND +44 (0) 20 7378 9900 [email protected] www.eventcomm.com © Event Communications Ltd 2018 The right of Event Communications Ltd to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988. Front cover: Laura Ford, Cardiff Contemporary Festival Source: Laura Ford Contents Executive Summary 7 Appendices 1. Introduction 17 Appendix 1: Consultation List 138 2. Findings and Opportunities 23 Appendix 2: Site Visits 140 Contemporary Art in Wales 25 Appendix 3: Bibliography 142 Supply: Visual and Applied Arts Ecology 30 Appendix 4: List of Figures 144 Demand: Audiences 51 Appendix 5: The Market 147 Key Contexts 61 Appendix 6: Longlist Options 155 Sector Ambition 86 Appendix 7: Vision and Mission Examples 227 3. Purpose and Vision 91 4. The Options 97 5. Recommendations 103 6. Details of the Model 119 7. Recommended Next Steps 131 “In Britain, whenever people come across something new and exciting, but challenging, there is a tendency for them to run for cover, to want what they know and are comfortable with. To design a great new building takes courage on everyone’s part. I think we have a lot more explaining to do.” Zaha Hadid, 1995 Jonathan Glancey, “A monumental spot of local trouble” (The Independent, Jan 1995) 5 Kelly Best, Installation View. Frame (watercolour on paper) and Apex #1 (mild steel) Source: Kelly Best Executive Summary 7 Executive Summary “The challenge to Welsh institutions and leaders, those with resources and influence, is to pool resources and to change what they do in order to facilitate and support action at the local level. We understand the level of challenge this presents to current ways of thinking. However we also think it is an opportunity which cannot be missed if we want more equal, vibrant and healthy communities.” Baroness Glenys Thornton, Chief Executive, The Young Foundation, 2016 In 1969 the Welsh Arts Council (WAC) Almost fifty years later, Wales today has still no dedicated, populist, national Wales. This report identifies the challenges launched Art and Society, a thematic an active network of visual arts institutions, platform for modern and contemporary art of creating such an institution: the nation’s programme of exhibitions that explored galleries and multi-purpose venues and in Wales. geography and the distribution of its contemporary topics – War (1969), Work a thriving contemporary art practice population (north and south, urban and (1970), Worship (1971) and Sex (1973) – bolstered by its representation at Cymru yn This report has been commissioned by the rural), language and cultural diversity, as through interdisciplinary art exhibitions. Fenis Wales in Venice. The success of the Welsh Government in partnership with Arts well as the requirement not to drain capital Seven years in duration, the programme Artes Mundi Prize, a biennale international Council of Wales and Amgueddfa Cymru to and revenue investment from existing, blurred and widened artistic and social exhibition in Cardiff founded in 2002 by ascertain the potential for a National and successful, cultural institutions and boundaries, embedded culture in public Welsh artist William Wilkins with support Gallery of Contemporary Art Wales. The programmes. The report argues that these discourse, challenged the status quo about from Arts Council of Wales, is study is based on extensive consultation, challenges can be viewed as assets that how and where art should be created and demonstrated by the over 800 entries it and following an options analysis, makes can be built on as the model for a new experienced, and willingly accepted the risk attracted in 2016 from critically acclaimed ambitious recommendations for developing national gallery is explored. of controversy, critique and even failure as artists across 90 countries. There are contemporary art in Wales with a national an element of ambition. Above all, the ever-growing collections of modern and institution sitting at its core. If this is accompanied by a vision that rises scope of the programme was driven by the contemporary art – comprising paintings, above discussions about the intrinsic belief that Wales could become a true, vital drawings, sculpture, photography, crafts, Underlying the recurrent desire for a and instrumental value of the arts, and relevant home of contemporary art, installations and mixed-media works – held National Gallery of Contemporary Art the result could be a National Gallery one that replaced the increasingly obsolete, within the Amgueddfa Cymru – National Wales is a sense that, while there are of Contemporary Art which is genuinely aristocratic, elitist model of culture with one Museum Wales and National Library of pockets of excellence, Wales lacks a focal of and for Wales. Its principles would defined by inclusivity. 1 Wales, among other organisations. point for contemporary visual artists and involve creating sustainable and resilient Welsh and international audiences. Many networks at all levels of the arts ecology. Yet if much of the spirit of the WAC’s 1969 feel that a new institution could represent It would aim to make Welsh contemporary programme has been realised, there is one the country on the global stage. However, art iconic, along with the landscapes, 1 Ken Baynes, The Art and Society Project of the Welsh Arts notable absence. Almost fifty years after there is a sense that the standard iconic people and culture that inspire it. It requires Council, Leonardo, Vol. 6, (Pergamon Press, 1973) 97-102; Huw public sector priming investment, but has David Jones, Redefining Art and Culture: The Welsh Arts that ground-breaking programme there is building often parachuted into a city is not Council’s ‘Art and Society’ Exhibition Series 1969–76, Visual the only, or indeed the best, answer for the potential to generate new business Culture in Britain, Volume 15, 2014, Issue 1, 28-49 National Contemporary Art Gallery Wales Preliminary Feasibility Study & Options Appraisal 8 July 2018 Executive Summary models which will help increase the total house a National Centre for Contemporary What change do we want and need for trail-blazed by artists and curators at resources available. Art in a white box space in Newport Wales? What will make a difference to Wales’ national, regional and hyper-local Riverside or Swansea – was taken forward. 2 communities, to artists and to the existing visual arts organisations. Additionally, a new gallery would nurture visual arts infrastructure? What is the new, artists throughout their career spans and It is within this context, that the bespoke or ideal model for Wales? How will St Fagans National Museum of History, participants and audiences throughout commitment to a Feasibility Study has been it bolster or catalyse what we have? And for example, has already developed an their lives. The aim would be to embed the made by the Welsh Government via a can we achieve that through a national innovative and internationally recognised arts in education, health, the creative 2017-18 budget allocation. This sends an contemporary arts entity? model of cultural democracy, which the industries and the tourist economy, important signal that the idea of a new Paul Hamlyn Foundation describes as a ensuring it plays an inspirational role at National Contemporary Art Gallery Wales Findings beacon for the UK’s museum and gallery every stage of people’s lives. By building on should be constructively developed and Event’s sector-wide consultations, site sector. Over 200 community and third existing assets, and leapfrogging current vetted, and could be well positioned to play visits, research, and visioning and options sector organisations across Wales – paradigms about gallery building, Wales a role in helping to create ‘The Wales We workshops, highlighted: including homeless organisations like could become a world leader in creative Want’ (Wales 2050 Future). The Wallich and Llamau and charities such citizenship, addressing both its highest Art and Artistic Practice in Wales as Drugaid Wales – have worked with cultural ambitions and its commitment to a This Preliminary Feasibility Study and Contemporary art in Wales is noted for its the museum to create volunteering more sustainable, just and inclusive society. Options Appraisal is thus designed to focus on Welsh landscape and language, opportunities, design new buildings, explore bold questions about the nature, and while contemporary visual arts practice co-create galleries and work onsite with Background needs and opportunities presented by in Wales is diverse, many artists across museum staff. Contemporary artists and In 2008 a feasibility study for a National contemporary visual and applied arts, while many media remain deeply inspired by and designers have made a major contribution Gallery of Art for Wales and an options rooting any answers in the reality of the connected to their physical environment. to the £30m project, including the study for a National Centre for lives of the public, the artists, and Wales’ developing a new children’s play area. Contemporary Art were undertaken, yet cultural organisations. What does the nation Forward-thinking practices in collaboration neither of the