Arts professionals and organisations have criticised Bath Council’s decision to close its Arts Development service in order to save £78,000, part of a programme of cuts designed to save £16m by 2020. A silent protest is planned for 31 October.
Cultural spend has been reallocated or cut to zero at four more councils this year, and some local authorities are turning a profit through culture and heritage.
Arts Professional’s Christy Romer reports.
With the recent announcement by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland that both QSS and Paragon Studios in Belfast have lost all their annual funding, Damian Magee addresses the impact of the decision on the city’s artist community and argues that it is indicative of a general lack of support for artists living and working in Northern Ireland.
Save Hertfordshire’s Public Art Collection states that it has until the end of March to stop Hertfordshire Council selling or disposing of 91% of the county’s public art collection – more than 1650 artworks.
The online survey of arts workers reveals the strain local authority cuts are putting on the sector, with community arts groups facing the biggest threat.
Ferens Art Gallery in Hull has reopened after a £5.2 million refurbishment largely funded by Hull City Council. But while the local authority should be commended for its commitment to culture, Sheila McGregor argues that the blame for council cuts in towns and cities across the UK needs to be forcefully directed at Westminster politicians rather than hapless local representatives.
As the New Art Gallery Walsall, opened in 2000 and home to the Garman Ryan Collection of over 300 Jacob Epstein sculptures, is threatened with closure, the artist Bob and Roberta Smith expresses his dismay at its possible demise.
In a piece originally published by The Conversation, Eleonora Belfiore looks at what Tate Modern’s new Switch House extension says about the organisation’s attempts to engage with a wider, more socially and economically diverse audience.
In a speech to launch a new report, Funding Arts and Culture in an Age of Austerity, Arts Council England chair Sir Peter Bazalgette has been outlining how local authorities can work with ACE to develop new ways to support the arts and culture sector.
The Museums Association Cuts Survey 2015 suggests that funding cuts are putting museums under increased pressure, with more pain to come as local authorities attempt to balance their decreasing budgets.
Speaking at last night’s Paul Hamlyn Foundation Awards for Artists event, author Jeanette Winterson spoke passionately and at length about the true value of art and the need for artists to be supported and encouraged.
The closure of the Independent Living Fund and cuts to the Access to Work scheme will lead to a massive reduction in the number of disabled people participating and working in the mainstream arts world, warns Helen Bayliss.
The BBC kicked off its new Get Creative initiative with a live Front Row debate from Hull Truck Theatre titled ‘Are artists owed a living?’ Chris Sharratt reports.
A campaign against proposals to close the ceramics department at City and Islington College has gained the support of Turner Prize-winning potter Grayson Perry.
In a piece originally published on The Conversation, Victoria Durrer of Queen’s University Belfast argues that damaging cuts to the arts in Northern Ireland are reshaping the sector.
Massive cuts are to go ahead at the new £189m Library of Birmingham, but for now at least the library’s Photography Collections’ team is to be saved.
Front-of-house staff at Dulwich Picture Gallery in south London have launched a petition in protest at a raft of proposed redundancies at the 200-year-old gallery.
With a strike ballot of National Gallery staff currently taking place over plans to privatise jobs, the PCS union has organised a day of action culminating in a protest in Trafalgar Square.
The Museums Association’s Cuts Survey 2014 reveals that more public collections are at risk following the negative impact that four years of cuts have had on the sector.
Arts Council England prepares to cut NPOs again next year, but strategic funding will take the hit from 2015/16.
The idea of an ‘American Model’ of arts funding is gaining traction in the UK along with growing calls for artists to be ‘entrepreneurial’. But, writes American critic and curator Andrew Horwitz, the funding system in the US is deeply problematic, while those who espouse entrepreneurship miss the point that the real ‘business of art’ is not for profit.
Speakers and delegates from the spheres of music, the visual and performing arts come together in London this December for a day of talks and discussions on how the economy is affecting the social ecology of the arts. We find out more from symposium organiser Third Ear Music, and offer a ticket giveaway exclusive to a-n members.
Funding cuts have forced museums and galleries to employ more unpaid volunteers and reduce the numbers of museum professionals, affecting education and outreach programmes.
A new offsite project in Leigh from Castlefield Gallery and Cross Street Arts, comes at a time when the town’s Turnpike Gallery is facing an uncertain future as council budget cuts bite.
“Art is not just about the money,” says Shadow Culture Secretary Harriet Harman in Commons debate on the arts and creative industries in the UK.
