An open letter to Scottish culture secretary Fiona Hyslop has criticised Creative Scotland’s handling of arts funding in the country and called on the Scottish government to give artists and arts organisations a bigger say in funding decisions.
News briefing with national and international stories, including: Iran opens its first museum dedicated to a solo female artist; New York’s Jewish Museum ends its relationship with curator Jens Hoffman.
The Scottish government’s draft budget for 2018/19 has allayed fears of significant funding cuts across Creative Scotland’s regularly funded organisations.
Scotland’s arts funding body has told regularly funded organisations that they will not get a decision on their April 2018-21 funding until the end of January 2018.
When Inverleith House closed to the public last year, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh said it no longer intended to use it as a gallery for contemporary art. Now, as it hosts its first exhibition since the closure, Regius Keeper Simon Milne has said reports of its demise were just a “rumour”. Neil Cooper takes issue with this rewriting of history and cautions that the fight to truly save this renowned Scottish art gallery is far from over.
The decision by the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh to close the gallery after over 30 years of exhibitions has prompted a storm of protest from artists and those working in the visual arts, with the latest ‘mass visit’ designed to keep the pressure on.
Scottish culture secretary Fiona Hyslop has intervened in the protests over the recent closure of Inverleith House gallery in the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.
