UK institutions participating in the Art Fund International (AFI) funding scheme, which ended in December, hope the momentum built by the project for collecting international contemporary art will continue.
The five-year initiative allocated £1m each to five partnerships between UK museums and contemporary art organisations.
The aim, according to the Art Fund, was to bring about “a radical change in the scale and ambition of contemporary art collecting in the UK”.
The New Art Gallery Walsall, which collaborated with Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and the Ikon gallery in Birmingham, will continue to collect contemporary art using its own acquisitions budget, complementing the existing AFI collection, said its director Stephen Snoddy.
Bristol Museums, Galleries and Archives Service collaborated with the Arnolfini in Bristol. Works acquired under the scheme include Ai Weiwei’s sculpture A Ton of Tea and Akram Zaatari’s video Tomorrow Everything Will be Alright.
Julie Finch, head of the museum service, said: “The future challenges lie in the continuation of collecting international contemporary art for organisations such as ours. The ‘partnership’ or combined approach will be hard to replicate in future collecting and this may be something that the Art Fund wishes to consider.”
Art Fund director Stephen Deuchar said the scheme had a “transformative effect” on the institutions involved.
“We hope other funders will follow our example and keep up the momentum that has been achieved,” he added.
The five-year initiative allocated £1m each to five partnerships between UK museums and contemporary art organisations.
The aim, according to the Art Fund, was to bring about “a radical change in the scale and ambition of contemporary art collecting in the UK”.
The New Art Gallery Walsall, which collaborated with Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and the Ikon gallery in Birmingham, will continue to collect contemporary art using its own acquisitions budget, complementing the existing AFI collection, said its director Stephen Snoddy.
Bristol Museums, Galleries and Archives Service collaborated with the Arnolfini in Bristol. Works acquired under the scheme include Ai Weiwei’s sculpture A Ton of Tea and Akram Zaatari’s video Tomorrow Everything Will be Alright.
Julie Finch, head of the museum service, said: “The future challenges lie in the continuation of collecting international contemporary art for organisations such as ours. The ‘partnership’ or combined approach will be hard to replicate in future collecting and this may be something that the Art Fund wishes to consider.”
Art Fund director Stephen Deuchar said the scheme had a “transformative effect” on the institutions involved.
“We hope other funders will follow our example and keep up the momentum that has been achieved,” he added.