Thursday 5 April 2007

The tyranny of exchange rates


Britain's regional galleries are being offered £5m buy and display contemporary art from overseas.

The money is being put up by the Art Fund to provide "the stimulus and the means of changing insular collecting habits".

In an article in the Guardian, the director of the Art Fund is quoted: "It's a desert out there. If you wander around our regional galleries, you won't find any evidence that there is artistic life beyond these shores."

£5m to tackle the insularity of UK art galleries - The Guardian

Regional galleries are being asked to put forward proposals for the funding, which will be spread over 5 years. The Art Fund hopes that galleries will look to the work of an emerging generation of international artists, rather than "the 300 artists who feature strongly at Frieze and Basel".

The article suggests galleries could collect works from places such as "sub-Saharan Africa, the Islamic world, or the Indian subcontinent". I say CNZ should start talking up New Zealand's attractive combination of affordability and exoticism.

Image: Peter Robinson, Strategic Plan - First We Take Manhattan, 1997. Collection FRAC Lorraine (that's overseas, you know).

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