Jonathan Jones wonders why local governments spend on new superfluous arts venues - like the Public in West Bromwich - when there are museums in need of support.
The news that the Public in West Bromwich is to close makes this a bad day for the arts in Britain. Or so I feel obliged to say. But is it really all that bad? And would a purge of recently opened art venues across the country necessarily be a big loss?
Journalistic opinion on the arts too often falls into predictable political buckets. The Guardian must mourn the Public, while the Daily Mail mocks the project's "idiocy". But I don't feel like getting out my placards in defence of the many, many new public art galleries (the Public showed visual art as well as hosting other art forms) that opened in the years of New Labour.
A few of these art spaces are superb. Others, however, seem strangely superfluous. They are neither essential to their local communities nor significant on the national stage. What exactly are they doing except providing good cafes for solicitors and council executives to grab a cappuccino in?
Worse, one or two new venues actually seem to damage a city's cultural life by taking cash and attention from older institutions that are sadly in need of support.
The news that the Public in West Bromwich is to close makes this a bad day for the arts in Britain. Or so I feel obliged to say. But is it really all that bad? And would a purge of recently opened art venues across the country necessarily be a big loss?
Journalistic opinion on the arts too often falls into predictable political buckets. The Guardian must mourn the Public, while the Daily Mail mocks the project's "idiocy". But I don't feel like getting out my placards in defence of the many, many new public art galleries (the Public showed visual art as well as hosting other art forms) that opened in the years of New Labour.
A few of these art spaces are superb. Others, however, seem strangely superfluous. They are neither essential to their local communities nor significant on the national stage. What exactly are they doing except providing good cafes for solicitors and council executives to grab a cappuccino in?
Worse, one or two new venues actually seem to damage a city's cultural life by taking cash and attention from older institutions that are sadly in need of support.