Hi all,
as an artist who was commissioned in the first round (my partner Golan and I
were commissioned for the top of the ramp) and the only artists who walked
away from the project when the building went into receivership, and who was
later contracted to help some friends finish the piece that replaced ours, I
could say from my perspective, there were several fundamental problems that
got compounded over time.
a) massive delays in construction caused time schedules to get messed up.
fine, this happens alot.
b) receivership caused a complete freeze in everyone getting back pay. many
artists were on the hook and owed money for quite a long time. I know a few
who were really hurt by this. I think this created alot of bad will from
contractors.
c) the long delays lead to alot of changes in contractors, we went through
several technicians / servicing companies.
d) there were crazy collisions between the building construction and the
gallery team, including times when artists would come on site and have
nothing to do, etc. the $ situation meant that different people were
responsible for different things. It was almost comedic, but very hard to
get projects complete. rolling deadlines and lots of snags.
e) the long delays led to a very disillusioned staff that had seen a two
year project turn into a six year project, etc.
the whole time I was on site, I felt very sad that the institution wasn't
more like a library, or swimming pool or something like that. It seems
wildly out of place. the whole model seemed very flawed.
at the same time, and I know there will be alot of negative energy (like
millenium dome style, look how bad this is type stuff) I really do think
it's an amazing building on the inside. The atrium / theatre / temporary
art space are quite nice. I hope that with some time and dedication and
getting past the negative energy (that's been around for along while now),
they may really be able to succeed, perhaps not with their current business
model but with more of the original jubilee arts style vision.
take care!
zach
> Hello CRUMB listers
> I write from NZ where the SCANZ residency is underway (www.intercreate.org)
> - we'll be developing the theme of the month for February with the
> participants here, so stay tuned!
> But in the meantime I wonder how many of you heard the BBC midnight news
> piece about The Public in West Bromwich and have any other takes on the
> situation there? I know it's a deeply complicated thing but I lament, from
> afar, that the news media is putting it down in part to the failure of the
> digital art inside the building, and that because the opening was so delayed
> the works themselves are out of date.
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/radio4_aod.shtml?radio4/midnightnews
> best for now,
> sarah
>
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