Image: Anthony McCall, Line Describing a Cone, 1973 during the twenty-fourth minute. Installation view, "Into the Light: the Projected Image in American Art 1964-1977", Whitney Museum of American Art, 2001. © Anthony McCall. Courtesy of the artist, Sprüth Magers, and Sean Kelly, New York/Los Angeles. Photograph by Hank Graber.
The weekly feature rounds up the latest updates in museum appointments, openings, funding and new exhibitions from across the UK.
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Appointments
Shane Quinn has been appointed as a Trustee to the Board of National Museums Northern Ireland. Quinn is the Development Director at Belfast Buildings Trust, a Board Director of the Academy of Urbanism, and a Trustee of the RUC George Cross Foundation where he also serves as Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee. He took up the role at the start of the month and will serve until 30 June 2028. Also reappointed is Websites Manager at Texthelp Charlotte Jess and Dr Robert Whan, Customer Experience Manager at Queen’s University Belfast., both of whom will serve another term until 30 June 2028.
The University of Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum has announced Sir Richard Heaton KCB, the Warden of Robinson College University of Cambridge, as the new Chair of the Fitzwilliam Museum’s Syndicate. Sir Richard succeeds Catherine Arnold OBE and will begin his appointment from October 2024.
Openings & closures
Beckford’s Tower and Museum reopened this weekend following a £3.9m refurbishment and reinterpretation. Originally known as Lansdown Tower and located just outside Bath, it has undergone essential repairs which encompass a reinterpretation of the tower’s story, alongside the installation of renewable energy sources, and the excavation of a previously hidden grotto.
Beckford’s Tower reopens after £3.9m restoration and reinterpretation
Bristol-based science attraction We The Curious has reopened to visitors this wee, after recovering from a fire which forced it to close in April 2022. A rare electrical accident with its solar panels, thought to have been caused by birds, forced the attraction to close after efforts to extinguish the fire caused significant water damage inside the building.
Exhibitions
A new exhibition at Valence House Museum in Dagenham will tell the little-known story of Victorian artist Henry Gillard Glindoni. The museum said that,while he was well respected and much exhibited during his own lifetime, his fame did not outlive him. ‘Beyond the easel: Rediscovering Dagenham’s forgotten artist’ brings together items from the museum’s own collection with loans from national and regional museums including: The Wellcome Collection’s John Dee performing an experiment before Elizabeth I, The Frost Fair, 1684 (1900) from The Grundy Art Gallery, and The Pipe and the Bottle (undated) from the Russell-Coates Art Gallery & Museum. The loans are supported by the Weston Loan Programme with Art Fund. Runs 6 July – 30 November 2024.
An exhibition Tate Modern of ‘solid light’ installations by British-born, US-based artist Anthony McCal has opened. The experimental cinema and installation art see visitors invited to interact with each of the four solid light works. The exhibition also includes film, photography and archive material documenting McCall’s practice. Runs until 27 April 2025.
The V&A is to open a trail for fans of Taylor Swift, featuring costumes and accessories from the pop star’s personal archive. Thirteen stops are planned on the trail across the museum’s permanent galleries, each spotlighting a particular era of the pop star’s music. Each installation will be ‘theatrically staged’, the museum said, with set dressing, music video and sound.
V&A trail to display costumes from Taylor Swift’s personal archive
A new exhibition at the British Motor Museum in Warwickshire will explore the nature of car design. ‘From Sketch to Street’ will explore five key themes from the motor industry’s design process, charting the evolution of car design via objects from the collection and on loan to the museum. Opens July 19 2024.
The Museum of Gloucester has opened a new LEGO exhibition, featuring historic scenes made entirely from the plastic bricks. ‘Brick History’ features characters including Mozart to Martin Luther King Jr., and scenes include the Big Bang and moon landings. Runs until 6 October 2024.
Funding
A new funding project, Jerwood Art Fund Commissions, is hoped to support museums and galleries to commission artists to make work across all visual art forms, with the intent of both furthering the artists’ early development and growing public collections through new contemporary art.
New fund supports museums and galleries to commission early-stage artists
