Works acquired through the Art Fund International (AFI) scheme in the West Midlands could be loaned to a proposed museum of contemporary art in Birmingham it has been revealed.
“The AFI West Midlands partnership [Birmingham’s Ikon Gallery, the New Art Gallery Walsall and Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery] was conceived in the spirit of collaboration,” said Jonathan Watkins, director of Ikon, who is spearheading the campaign for the new institution, which he hopes to launch by 2016. “The new museum, likewise, will not be a territorial institution.”
A spokeswoman for the Art Fund, which awarded £1m to the West Midlands venues in 2007, said: “The partners agreed that the AFI collection should be made available for long-term loan to the new museum. It could act as a high-profile catalyst resource from which to further build a collection of international contemporary art.”
Stephen Snoddy, director of the New Art Gallery Walsall, said the new museum would have a “ready-made loan collection of 30 to 35 works on the theme of the metropolis, at the end of the five-year AFI scheme”. He said that the planned institution wouldn’t affect Walsall’s visitor figures or collecting policy and that it would increase the public’s appetite for contemporary art.
Watkins aims to run the Museum of Contemporary Art as an independent trust, with funding from various foundations, as well as local and central government.
But a source in the museum sector questioned the venture, saying that it could prove difficult to raise sufficient revenue funds for a new venue in the current financial climate.
Meanwhile, the Heritage Lottery Fund has awarded £4.8m towards a new wing at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery that will focus on the history of the city and is set to open in late 2012.