Whitworth Art Gallery director Maria Balshaw has found a novel way to make sure visitors spend more time at her venue. She has organised a four-hour long exhibition of live art where the audience, all of whom have been issued with white lab coats and notebooks to record their experiences, will be expected to stay for the duration.
Even with the promise of nudity and the chance to be in a documentary, this still might test the staying power of some.
Nevertheless, Balshaw is a big fan of live art and very excited about Marina Abramovic Presents. She has developed the project with the Belgrade-born Abramovic and Hans Ulrich Obrist of the Serpentine Gallery. The exhibition (3-19 July) is part of the Manchester International Festival and all the public spaces at the gallery will be emptied of art and furniture to make space for the 14 artists.
"It will be quite an extraordinary event for the gallery," says Balshaw, who has enjoyed the project, even though it is rare for her to get involved in curating at the Whitworth. She became its director in 2006 and her role is more about the overall strategy and future development of the gallery.
"The university was clear that they wanted a director who would institute change," she says. "The university had merged with the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), so there was a massive expansion and a clear vision for the whole university.
"That was the offer - to come and transform the place to make it an internationally-minded world-class institution that would be appropriate for a university with those ambitions."
Exhibitions at the Whitworth now often have an international element and Balshaw says it is also important for projects to link with the university's research strengths.
She cites the 2007 exhibition, Autonomous Agents: The Art and Films of Lynn Hershman Leeson, as a good example. It was about an American artist and involved Stanford University in the US and Amelia Jones, the professor and Pilkington chair in the history of art at the University of Manchester.
Balshaw has also been working on redrawing the gallery's collecting policy during the past 18 months. The Whitworth will continue to add to its large textile collection, focussing on artist-designed textiles. With its art collection, the gallery is concentrating on landscapes.
Balshaw says this is a subject that can be explored by university departments, including staff working outside the history of art, such as cultural geographers and social historians.
The focus on landscapes is linked to Balshaw's other major project: a £12m extension for the Whitworth that will house an international centre for landscape study. The project has just received a Stage One Pass from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), allowing the gallery to prepare a bid for £6m.
Balshaw says the extension is about more than landscapes: "What we want to do is reconnect the gallery to the park. This is the only really significant bit of green in the whole of the city centre and we still have a fence dividing our bit of green space from the park. It sends out a very bad message about whether the gallery is open to the public."
Balshaw also hopes the project will help the gallery connect more with the people living around it. "If you stand at the back of our gallery and look across the park, the communities that face you are Moss Side, Rusholme and, just beyond that, Hulme.
They are communities we work with all the time in terms of our school programme and our creative engagement activities. They are some of the poorest wards in the north-west and they are absolutely the communities that need to feel that this collection belongs to them."
If the redevelopment does go ahead it will be a big achievement for Balshaw, especially in the current economic climate. Even if the bid is successful, there will still be another £6m to raise. But she is confident the gallery will see out the downturn.
"It has been a golden age for museums and galleries in the past three years, particularly for those that have been involved in the Renaissance programme. I believe these are the resources we should have, and it has been a joy as it has allowed real innovation and excitement in our work.
"I am determined we won't lose that sense of ambition. I don't mean to sound naive about the recession, I am really quite hard-nosed about how difficult it is going to be, but we will strive to continue to be really good."
Balshaw's enthusiasm is probably partly linked to her feeling that she has the "ideal job" for her. She started her career as an academic, which included a stint as a senior research fellow at the University of Birmingham.
She left to work as a director in the Birmingham area at the government learning programme Creative Partnerships. Then came the turning point of the Clore Cultural Leadership programme, which she took in 2004-05. She describes it as "hugely enlightening" and says it helped her decide she wanted to stay in the cultural sector.
After Clore, she returned to Creative Partnerships as regional director for about 18 months until the Whitworth job came up.
"At that point I was beginning to think about how I could bring together the leadership training and my interests in learning and creativity with my academic training, which was really in visual culture," she says. "Then the job at the Whitworth came up and I was headhunted for it and it was exactly what I was looking for."
There must be something attractive about the Whitworth: past directors have often had long tenures. Balshaw replaced Alistair Smith, who stayed for 16 years, and Margaret Pilkington, who joined in 1935, stayed for 20 years as director and remained involved for many years after, even waiving her salary.
Balshaw might not be waiving hers, but she is just as committed, although you get the feeling that she might move somewhere more high-profile before she reaches the 20-year mark.
But at present she is concentrating on developing the gallery. "It has been a huge job here over the past three years - we have turned the organisation around, and it has been enjoyable and full on."
Balshaw has refrained from joining any other cultural organisations, except the board of the Manchester Museums Consortium. "I have two children, a dog and a garden and a life, and I think it is important to have some balance," she says.
Maintaining this balance might become increasingly difficult as the £12m extension project progresses. But for now Balshaw can look forward to a shorter-term transformation of the gallery by Marina Abramovic.
Even with the promise of nudity and the chance to be in a documentary, this still might test the staying power of some.
Nevertheless, Balshaw is a big fan of live art and very excited about Marina Abramovic Presents. She has developed the project with the Belgrade-born Abramovic and Hans Ulrich Obrist of the Serpentine Gallery. The exhibition (3-19 July) is part of the Manchester International Festival and all the public spaces at the gallery will be emptied of art and furniture to make space for the 14 artists.
"It will be quite an extraordinary event for the gallery," says Balshaw, who has enjoyed the project, even though it is rare for her to get involved in curating at the Whitworth. She became its director in 2006 and her role is more about the overall strategy and future development of the gallery.
"The university was clear that they wanted a director who would institute change," she says. "The university had merged with the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), so there was a massive expansion and a clear vision for the whole university.
"That was the offer - to come and transform the place to make it an internationally-minded world-class institution that would be appropriate for a university with those ambitions."
Exhibitions at the Whitworth now often have an international element and Balshaw says it is also important for projects to link with the university's research strengths.
She cites the 2007 exhibition, Autonomous Agents: The Art and Films of Lynn Hershman Leeson, as a good example. It was about an American artist and involved Stanford University in the US and Amelia Jones, the professor and Pilkington chair in the history of art at the University of Manchester.
Balshaw has also been working on redrawing the gallery's collecting policy during the past 18 months. The Whitworth will continue to add to its large textile collection, focussing on artist-designed textiles. With its art collection, the gallery is concentrating on landscapes.
Balshaw says this is a subject that can be explored by university departments, including staff working outside the history of art, such as cultural geographers and social historians.
The focus on landscapes is linked to Balshaw's other major project: a £12m extension for the Whitworth that will house an international centre for landscape study. The project has just received a Stage One Pass from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), allowing the gallery to prepare a bid for £6m.
Balshaw says the extension is about more than landscapes: "What we want to do is reconnect the gallery to the park. This is the only really significant bit of green in the whole of the city centre and we still have a fence dividing our bit of green space from the park. It sends out a very bad message about whether the gallery is open to the public."
Balshaw also hopes the project will help the gallery connect more with the people living around it. "If you stand at the back of our gallery and look across the park, the communities that face you are Moss Side, Rusholme and, just beyond that, Hulme.
They are communities we work with all the time in terms of our school programme and our creative engagement activities. They are some of the poorest wards in the north-west and they are absolutely the communities that need to feel that this collection belongs to them."
If the redevelopment does go ahead it will be a big achievement for Balshaw, especially in the current economic climate. Even if the bid is successful, there will still be another £6m to raise. But she is confident the gallery will see out the downturn.
"It has been a golden age for museums and galleries in the past three years, particularly for those that have been involved in the Renaissance programme. I believe these are the resources we should have, and it has been a joy as it has allowed real innovation and excitement in our work.
"I am determined we won't lose that sense of ambition. I don't mean to sound naive about the recession, I am really quite hard-nosed about how difficult it is going to be, but we will strive to continue to be really good."
Balshaw's enthusiasm is probably partly linked to her feeling that she has the "ideal job" for her. She started her career as an academic, which included a stint as a senior research fellow at the University of Birmingham.
She left to work as a director in the Birmingham area at the government learning programme Creative Partnerships. Then came the turning point of the Clore Cultural Leadership programme, which she took in 2004-05. She describes it as "hugely enlightening" and says it helped her decide she wanted to stay in the cultural sector.
After Clore, she returned to Creative Partnerships as regional director for about 18 months until the Whitworth job came up.
"At that point I was beginning to think about how I could bring together the leadership training and my interests in learning and creativity with my academic training, which was really in visual culture," she says. "Then the job at the Whitworth came up and I was headhunted for it and it was exactly what I was looking for."
There must be something attractive about the Whitworth: past directors have often had long tenures. Balshaw replaced Alistair Smith, who stayed for 16 years, and Margaret Pilkington, who joined in 1935, stayed for 20 years as director and remained involved for many years after, even waiving her salary.
Balshaw might not be waiving hers, but she is just as committed, although you get the feeling that she might move somewhere more high-profile before she reaches the 20-year mark.
But at present she is concentrating on developing the gallery. "It has been a huge job here over the past three years - we have turned the organisation around, and it has been enjoyable and full on."
Balshaw has refrained from joining any other cultural organisations, except the board of the Manchester Museums Consortium. "I have two children, a dog and a garden and a life, and I think it is important to have some balance," she says.
Maintaining this balance might become increasingly difficult as the £12m extension project progresses. But for now Balshaw can look forward to a shorter-term transformation of the gallery by Marina Abramovic.
Maria Balshaw at a glance
Maria Balshaw was appointed as the director of the Whitworth Art Gallery in June 2006. Before this she was the director of development and external relations at Arts Council: West Midlands and from 2002 to 2005 was the director of Creative Partnerships: Birmingham.
Before moving to the cultural sector, Balshaw was an academic at University College, Northampton, and from 1997, a senior research fellow at the University of Birmingham.
In 2004 she was selected as one of the inaugural fellows for the Clore Cultural Leadership programme.
Maria Balshaw was appointed as the director of the Whitworth Art Gallery in June 2006. Before this she was the director of development and external relations at Arts Council: West Midlands and from 2002 to 2005 was the director of Creative Partnerships: Birmingham.
Before moving to the cultural sector, Balshaw was an academic at University College, Northampton, and from 1997, a senior research fellow at the University of Birmingham.
In 2004 she was selected as one of the inaugural fellows for the Clore Cultural Leadership programme.