ART FOR OUR SAKE?

01-07-2009

Could Birmingham be on the verge of building a major modern art museum to compare with the Tate Modern, MoMA in New York, or Bilbao’s Guggenheim? The city’s cabinet member for Leisure Martin Mullaney certainly thinks so.

As the Birmingham Post reported yesterday Mullaney (along with AWM and the Arts Council) has commissioned a feasibility report into the new centre, which would occupy the site of current Wholesale Markets.

The idea is the brainchild of Ikon Gallery director Jonathan Watkins.

We share Watkins’ and Mullaney’s enthusiasm for the project.

Whereas Newcastle/Gateshead has raised its profile with The Sage, and Manchester has benefited from both Urbis and The Lowry, in recent years Birmingham has allowed its cultural credentials to wilt – even though we reckon that in terms of creativity per head of population the West Midlands outshines anywhere else in the UK.

Showpiece arts centres don’t always work – just look at the dismal failure of The Public in West Brom – but when they are well managed, they can add lustre to a city.

Major obstacles remain – not least cost – but that’s what feasibility studies are for; to establish the price and the potential of bold ideas.

The location certainly looks ideal. In the Big City Plan, Sir Michael Parkinson identified the demolition of the Wholesale Markets as a key marker of Birmingham’s ambition.

It could either become the site of another bland “mixed use” development – ho hum - or, preferably, it could be used to create Birmingham’s “Covent Garden” i.e. an area of quality and distinction attracting national and international recognition.

A modern gallery (and possibly a film centre, too) is just the sort of thing Parkinson had in mind.

Geographically, it would make sense, linking the arty enterprises of the Custard Factory with the left-field entertainments of the Arcadian and Gay Village – as well as offering a major new attraction in its own right.

Not so much art for arts sake, as art for all our sakes, this could be the long overdue next phase in the city’s development.