The review of contemporary visual arts is part of Turning Point, the arts council's ten-year strategy for the sector.
The strategy says that, while new and redeveloped lottery-funded venues such as Baltic, the Walsall Art Gallery and the De La Warr Pavilion have provided new venues for the public to see contemporary visual arts, 'the price of that success is a level of activity that is unsustainable without further investment, and large areas of the country still have little access to contemporary art'.
Many visual arts venues have small operating budgets, making it difficult to develop, commission and buy new work, which is not helped by having to operate in a complicated funding structure.
'I think the strategy is a great opportunity to get hold of a very fragmented set of funding and to make sense of it,' says Virginia Tandy, the director of Manchester City Galleries. 'With Renaissance in the Regions and the regional arts councils, there is the chance to do something quite special, providing we seize the moment and some money is found to make it happen.'
Among the arts council's solutions are regional action plans linked to the Renaissance in the Regions, a national strategy for public contemporary collections and continued support for schemes that develop contemporary art collections.
One such project is the Contemporary Art Society's (CAS) Special Collections Scheme, which used arts council lottery money to fund 15 regional museums to buy contemporary art. The scheme ended in 2005, but there has been talk about reviving it, although nothing has been decided.
Stephen Snoddy, the director of the Walsall Art Gallery, said: 'The CAS scheme should have been continued for another five years in my opinion. When I joined Walsall, I reinstigated the purchase fund for contemporary art because I did not want us to lose the momentum for contemporary art. We see it as an absolute priority - the tragedy over the past few years is that budgets have not been in place to buy contemporary art by people such as Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst and Sarah Lucas.'
To help its work, the arts council has joined forces with the Tate, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and the CAS to create the first national online database of contemporary art in public collections.
Other problems the arts council has identified with contemporary visual arts include a workforce that does not reflect the diversity of the general population. Also, staff often have poor standards of pay, conditions and professional development.
To improve the situation, the arts council is hoping to work with organisations such as the Museums Association and local authorities to set new guidelines for salaries, employment and career progression in the visual arts.
The strategy says that, while new and redeveloped lottery-funded venues such as Baltic, the Walsall Art Gallery and the De La Warr Pavilion have provided new venues for the public to see contemporary visual arts, 'the price of that success is a level of activity that is unsustainable without further investment, and large areas of the country still have little access to contemporary art'.
Many visual arts venues have small operating budgets, making it difficult to develop, commission and buy new work, which is not helped by having to operate in a complicated funding structure.
'I think the strategy is a great opportunity to get hold of a very fragmented set of funding and to make sense of it,' says Virginia Tandy, the director of Manchester City Galleries. 'With Renaissance in the Regions and the regional arts councils, there is the chance to do something quite special, providing we seize the moment and some money is found to make it happen.'
Among the arts council's solutions are regional action plans linked to the Renaissance in the Regions, a national strategy for public contemporary collections and continued support for schemes that develop contemporary art collections.
One such project is the Contemporary Art Society's (CAS) Special Collections Scheme, which used arts council lottery money to fund 15 regional museums to buy contemporary art. The scheme ended in 2005, but there has been talk about reviving it, although nothing has been decided.
Stephen Snoddy, the director of the Walsall Art Gallery, said: 'The CAS scheme should have been continued for another five years in my opinion. When I joined Walsall, I reinstigated the purchase fund for contemporary art because I did not want us to lose the momentum for contemporary art. We see it as an absolute priority - the tragedy over the past few years is that budgets have not been in place to buy contemporary art by people such as Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst and Sarah Lucas.'
To help its work, the arts council has joined forces with the Tate, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and the CAS to create the first national online database of contemporary art in public collections.
Other problems the arts council has identified with contemporary visual arts include a workforce that does not reflect the diversity of the general population. Also, staff often have poor standards of pay, conditions and professional development.
To improve the situation, the arts council is hoping to work with organisations such as the Museums Association and local authorities to set new guidelines for salaries, employment and career progression in the visual arts.
