Manchester’s arts scene has benefited from a much-needed injection of style, thanks to "the Maria effect", says Katie Popperwell.
At the opening of the Ossie Clark exhibition at Manchester’s Gallery of Costume, Maria Balshaw showed up wearing an original python skin Clark jacket and recounted to a room packed with fashion students how she’d casually picked it up in a vintage shop in Bath while on the hunt for some Vivienne Westwood. If you listened very carefully, you could hear the sound of 100 girl crushes crystalizing beneath layers of Primark polyester as a fleet of adolescent hearts found their champion. It’s hard to imagine Nicholas Serota pulling off a similar stunt.
But that’s the Maria effect. Since she extended her directorship of the university-owned Whitworth Art Gallery to take on the city’s central municipal gallery, Manchester’s arts scene has benefited from a much-needed injection of style. Now the launches, the shows, the profiling – it’s all dialled up to ten. And it’s working. Visitor numbers are up and the Whitworth is about to emerge from a £15 million renovation project with Balshaw at the helm. Last year she received an International Woman’s Day Award in recognition of her cultural contribution to the city and was subsequently named Manchester City Council’s strategic lead for culture... Keep reading on Northern Soul
At the opening of the Ossie Clark exhibition at Manchester’s Gallery of Costume, Maria Balshaw showed up wearing an original python skin Clark jacket and recounted to a room packed with fashion students how she’d casually picked it up in a vintage shop in Bath while on the hunt for some Vivienne Westwood. If you listened very carefully, you could hear the sound of 100 girl crushes crystalizing beneath layers of Primark polyester as a fleet of adolescent hearts found their champion. It’s hard to imagine Nicholas Serota pulling off a similar stunt.
But that’s the Maria effect. Since she extended her directorship of the university-owned Whitworth Art Gallery to take on the city’s central municipal gallery, Manchester’s arts scene has benefited from a much-needed injection of style. Now the launches, the shows, the profiling – it’s all dialled up to ten. And it’s working. Visitor numbers are up and the Whitworth is about to emerge from a £15 million renovation project with Balshaw at the helm. Last year she received an International Woman’s Day Award in recognition of her cultural contribution to the city and was subsequently named Manchester City Council’s strategic lead for culture... Keep reading on Northern Soul