The UK government will invest £1.5bn in more than 1,000 arts venues, museums, libraries and heritage buildings across UK over the next five years to ‘fix urgent capital needs and open up access to culture’, the department of culture, media and sport announced on 21 January. £600m has been allocated to national museums such as the British Museum and National Gallery, with regional museums set to receive a share of £160m. A £425m Creative Foundations Fund, managed by Arts Council England, will be used to support some 300 capital projects across arts venues, while £337.5m will support heritage protection, libraries and National Portfolio organisations. ‘This funding will keep the doors open and the lights on’ at thousands of venues that ‘might otherwise have been at real risk of closing’, said culture secretary Lisa Nandy. The investment has been welcomed by those across the culture sector, with Jenny Waldman, director of Art Fund, saying that, after years of ‘immense strain’, the funding was ‘huge boost’ that recognised the ‘crucial impact’ of museums.
Staff at the Louvre have staged another strike on 19 January – the ninth strike in a month – forcing the museum to close for the day, Le Monde reports. The strike was voted upon unanimously by around 350 staff members who continue to push back against poor pay, understaffing and deficiencies in the maintenance and infrastructure of the museum. Further talks between trade unions and management are scheduled for 29 January; however, Valerie Baud, a representative of the French Democratic Confederation of Labour said that if workers ‘get the pay but continue with this governance model, [they] won’t be out of the woods’. The Art Newspaper reports that staff complaints surrounding the leadership of director Laurence des Cars have been amplified by her plans for a major renovation that they feel fails to address core maintenance issues; meanwhile, a source close to the French government told the publication that ‘the days of Des Cars [as director] are numbered’.
Museums and arts venues across Minnesota, including the Walker Art Center, the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA) and the Minnesota Museum of American Art, closed to the public on 23 January as part of a state-wide strike in protest at the United States’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) presence in Minnesota, Art News reports. The strike comes in the wake of the killing of Minneapolis resident Renee Nicole Macklin Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross in the city on 7 January. Speaking to Minnesota local news outlet Bring Me the News, a representative for the Walker said that the closure on what has been called the ‘Day of Truth and Freedom’ reflected the museum’s ‘institutional values to center our community’, while MIA shared on its website that it was ‘pausing operations to recognize the weight of this moment’.
Sally Tallant will be the new director of the Hayward Gallery in London. Since 2019, Tallant has been the director of the Queens Museum in New York. Her previous roles include artistic director and CEO of the Liverpool Biennial and head of programmes at the Serpentine in London. She begins her new role in July, taking over from Ralph Rugoff, who announced that he would be stepping down as director after 20 years in the role last September. In other appointment news, Patrick Elliott has been selected as the National Gallery’s first curator of modern paintings, the gallery announced on 21 January. The position has been created as part of Project Domani, the museum’s plan to build a new wing and grow its collection of 20th- and 21st-century art. He joins from the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh, where he has worked from 36 years, most recently as its chief curator of modern and contemporary art. Finally, Joe Hill has been appointed director of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP). He joins YSP from Towner Eastbourne, where he worked as director since 2018. He will begin the role in April and takes over from Clare Lilley, who stepped down in July last year.
