POSTSCRIPT | May - June 2007 | Newport - Towards a new National Centre for Contemporary Art in Wales?

 

 

Whilst the Documenting the City temporary exhibition was on show at the Newport Museum and Art Gallery in May and June 2007,  there was press speculation upon a  Newport riverside location for a new National Centre for Contemporary Art in Wales - so that  a clearer pattern emerges for the future shape of art in Newport?   

Our earlier utopian musings upon  the future prospects for art in Newport - see Towards a new social and cultural geography of Newport - may therefore be related to current policy debate and, perhaps, a little closer to the art of the possible as a new cultural imaginary is in the making.

 

 

A "National Centre for Contemporary Art in Wales" - ?

 

There has been recent press speculation - May 2007 -  upon a National Centre  for Contemporary Art in Wales, with Newport touted as a frontrunner and reference to the transformation of the Spanish industrial port of Bilbao's fortunes by its new Guggenheim Museum.

 

 

The South Wales Argus reports: "It is early days yet and there is still a lot of discussion to be had but it appears Newport is a front-runner for a new multi-million pound national centre for contemporary art in Wales. | This is according to the director of the influential think-tank the Institue of Welsh Affairs, John Osmond and is a potentially great piece of news for the city. | (...) But art galleries can act as great catalysts for change and regeneration and their presence in a city can have a major knock-on effect for the rest of the area. | Bilbao, was a run of the mill industrial port in northern Spain with nothing very much to attract the visitor. It was definitely not on the tourist trail. But the opening of the unique Guggenheim Museum in the city has led to an economic transformation. |Within a relatively short space of time Bilbao has earned its place as a must-see city. | Just a little bit of that magic would do wonders for Newport, which is already well down the road of its own transformation".

 

The Argus: "A possible riverside location of the proposed gallery could create a cultural landmark, the director of a leading Welsh think-tank says. | "Newport would be an ideal location for the home of contemporary art in Wales," said John Osmond, director of the Institute of Welsh Affairs".

 

The urban regeneration vision


From a planners point of view a National Centre for Contemporary Art would be an obvious addition to the city of Newport's Usk-side regeneration - think of the Baltimore and Gateshead urban redevelopment models; or more recently, of Middlesbrough's new MIMA building.

 
Adding her voice to Newport's cause, Rosemary Butler, AM for Newport West (and chair of  the Welsh Assembly Government's culture committee until last year), is reported by the Argus as saying that the centre would find "a natural home"in the city. The Argus reports: "Mrs Butler has already held talks with Peter Noyes, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Wales, Newport, and city council leader Bob Bright, in an attempt to drum up support for a campaign. | She said a riverside setting and the city's excellent transport links made Newport "the obvious choice" for the centre. | The combination of existing arts spaces, including Newport Museum and Art Gallery and the Riverfront, along with the university's new campus being built nearby, ";would create a magnet for art lovers from all over the world" she added".

 

 The art and regeneration agenda is certainly an insistent one in Wales at present, as witness the Arts Council of Wales' recent - 14 June, 2007 - annual conference "on the theme of regeneration through the arts": "The Arts: Creating a New Wales - regenerating, renewing, revitalising". For a reality check we may look a little further afield to Merseyside, where the the regeneration and culture agenda is certainly gaining momentum as Liverpool-08  engages its opportunity and challenge as European Capital of Culture 2008 (see for example the City in Transistion programme of 2006 here)



A cultural agenda - a civic and national vision for art?


One may conclude that with the City of Newport's large scale capital project for urban regeneration unfolding at present, with the forthcoming spectacle of the Ryder Cup, and with the unique opportunity of river-side land available for development, that the logic of Newport's case is an unassailable one for the location of a "National Centre  for Contemporary Art in Wales".

Hence a clear cultural agenda emerges - of Newport's unique opportunity for future cultural development as a part of the exciting transformation of the new city at large, to not only seek to maximize the value of its civic cultural assets but to raise the game beyond this to include a new national centre for contemporary art. A clear cultural vision and challenge, the likes of which appears but rarely and fleetingly across the generations for any city. Is the City of Newport up to the challenge?

 

The Faustian dream of the new city continues: Bilbao, Middlesbrough, Newport. And,  yes, all three places have a Transporter Bridge!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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