Galleries
turner round
“the loveliest skies in Europe”. The town has since spiralled into eco- nomic and social decline, so the April opening of Turner Contemporary – a £17.4m (E19.7m, US$28.2m) modern art gallery that’s been 10 years in the making – was a very exciting development. The Victorian art critic John Ruskin called the controversial painter “the father of modern art”, and it’s this legacy of push- ing boundaries (think the Turner Prize) that has informed the direction of Turner Contemporary since day one. Rather than dedicating itself to Turner’s work, the gal- lery will instead focus on pieces that have been inspired by the artist. The project is made even more exciting because of the controversy that’s plagued it along the way: the original architects were sent packing in 2006 when costs spiralled out of control. And it’s not just a visitor attraction, but the driving force of a multi-layered plan to regenerate the town.
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argate in Kent, UK, was once a glorious Victorian seaside resort, much loved by the painter JMW Turner, who claimed that Margate had
Turner Contemporary, a gallery dedicated to work inspired by the eponymous artist, has opened in Kent, UK. Rhianon Howells finds out why it took 10 years to create and why it won’t be focusing on Turner
Grass-roots movement It was from a grass-roots desire to reverse Margate’s downward trajectory that the idea for Turner Contemporary was born. “One man, John Crofts, is credited with the idea,” says director Victoria Pomery, a former senior curator at Tate Liverpool who joined the fledgling project in 2002. “John was a member of the Margate Civic Partnership, a group that was very con- cerned about what was happening to the town. He came up with the idea [for the gallery] in the 90s and did a lot of research into Turner, and his relationship with Margate and Kent.” Crofts discovered that not only had
Turner attended school in Margate as a boy, but that he had returned to the town throughout his life – attracted by its lovely skies, but also by the charms of one Mrs Sophia Booth, the landlady of the guest- house where he stayed and with whom he
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had a life-long affair. More than 100 of his paintings, including many of his famous seascapes, were inspired by the east Kent coast. The idea, though, was never to cre- ate a gallery dedicated only to Turner. Sadly, Crofts died in 2009. But his
dream gained momentum when both Kent County Council (KCC) and the national Arts Council bought into the idea. “KCC was very interested in culture-led regenera- tion,” says Pomery. “And the Arts Council was interested in improving the cultural infrastructure of the south-east, particularly Kent, which suffers from its proximity to London – the argument being that people could get their cultural fix in London, even though until recently it was a good two hours away on the train. So various things came together at the same time.” As a result, in 2001, KCC commissioned
a feasibility study, before immediately launching an international architectural
AM 3 2011 ©cybertrek 2011
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