A space to think at New Art Gallery Walsall
After being awarded a postgraduate diploma in art gallery and museum studies at the University of Manchester, Stephen has since held senior posts everywhere from Manchester to Southampton, Milton Keynes, Gateshead and Norwich.
Five years ago he joined the New Art Gallery Walsall.
Believing in all-round excellence ahead of “putting all of my eggs into one basket with a ‘blockbuster’ exhibition”, Stephen improved the gallery’s website and worked on making the programme “better and more adaptable”.
Last year’s Outsider’s ‘street art’ exhibits, for example won a whole, new audience.
With wife, Sandra, currently studying for an MA in photography, one of Stephen’s other favourite exhibitions was Birmingham photographer Stuart Whipps’ account of the Longbridge car factory closure.
Stephen also loves exhibits which surprise, so he particularly admired a foyer chandelier that was unrecognisably made out of 25,000 tampons by Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos.
He also helped to attract Costa Coffee to run the new – and very attractive – ground floor refreshment area where, until recently, it was the only ‘branded’ coffee shop in town.
The old fourth floor restaurant was closed and turned into an exhibition space.
Today, existing plans for celebrity gardener Diarmuid Gavin to create a rooftop garden are on hold, until they can be fully funded and, of course, guaranteed not to affect the exhibits down below.
“We have the only public view of the town other than from a car park,” says Stephen. “But we have to create something that doesn’t need to be watered.”
If the adjacent waterside development finally begins this year, Stephen is hoping that by being in the middle between a supermarket at one end and new apartments/restaurants at the other, the gallery will become a self-sustaining hub at the heart of everything.
Stephen believes it would be “impossible” to hire a fund-raiser who could recoup more than £1,000 worth of wages and costs per week from the private sector in order to begin to benefit the gallery. Hence one of his best ideas was probably the simplest.
“Some people felt intimidated by the building so we put a big sign up outside saying ‘Admission Free’ which is lit up 24 hours per days,” he says.
“The figures went up immediately. We reckon it’s added 10,000 to the annual attendance alone, or 200 per week.”
In the art gallery world, clearly every bit helps. While the gallery supports local talents including Simon and Tom Bloor, Faye Claridge and Sima Gonsai, many artists whose works have been displayed over the years have sent their own tenth birthday cards for a new exhibition starting this week.
In another nice touch, the public has also had a chance to enter submissions, too.
Were Tony Blair still in office today, he’d probably refer to The New Art Gallery Walsall as “The People’s Gallery”.
But, in a today’s age of austerity, Stephen is not impressed with the legacy of another Millennium project – The Dome, now known as The O2 Arena. “That would probably cost £1 billion to build today, the New Art Gallery Walsall £30 million,” he says.
“Imagine how many galleries, small theatres, sports centres and libraries we could have had for the same money.”
In February, 2010, it’s a not unreasonable question to ask.
* Ten of Walsall's best exhibitions
In no particular order, art critic Dave Freak selects ten significant and popular exhibitions from The New Art Gallery Walsall’s first decade.
* Blue – the first exhibition at The New Art Gallery looks at the colour blue, with contributions from Picasso, Magritte, Miro, Damien Hirst, Anish Kapoor, Bridget Riley and Marc Chagall, whose Blue Circus (on loan from Tate) returns for Party!
* Human And Divine – a brief history of 2,000 years of Indian sculpture with a collection of predominantly sacred works.
* Christopher Le Brun – survey of paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures by one of the leading figures to emerge from the 1980s British art scene.
* Outsiders – fresh and exhilarating works by international artists inspired by traditions of graffiti art and pop’ culture.
* Hidden Histories – the gallery continues to break new ground with the first international historical survey of the lives and work of 20th century gay artists.
* Hew Locke – solo exhibition from the Guyana-raised now London-based artist featuring a Cardboard Palace and a huge portrait of the Queen constructed from small plastic toys and trinkets.
* Cult Fiction – exploring the relationship between art and comics with Marcel Dzama, David Shrigley, Robert Crumb, Joe Sacco, Posy Simmonds and more.
* Andy Warhol – early illustrative works dating from the 1950’s and 1960’s by the future Pop Art master.
* Andrew Tift – one of many West Midlands’ artists supported by the gallery over the last decade (also see Stuart Whipps, Richard Billingham, Juneau Projects, Mitra Memarzia etc), the work of award-winning Walsall-born portraitist Tift has since entered the gallery’s permanent collection.
* Fairy Tale – another in a long line of successful themed shows (also see the fame-fed Starstruck and food themed Pot Luck) revisits the worlds of Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen with dark consequences. Featuring Beauty ravished by the Beast, and a giant castle constructed from a single piece of paper measuring 6m x 6m.
