Another one bites the dust!
Spaces to show work in and around the Wiltshire/Hampshire/Dorset area are few and far between at the best of times but an email arrived yesterday to inform me that yet another one had succumbed to acrisis in funding.
Earlier in the year we saw Kube gallery in Poole go, despite it’s weight of cultural contribution to the area and now, the artist led Bargate Monument gallery, a really vibrant, friendly and experimental space in Southampton has had to close it’s doors for the foreseeable future, the proposals it recently invited for next years programmes, no longer needed.
I have no doubt ASPACE, the organisation behind the gallery will continue to foster projects outside the gallery context but with it’s very central position among the bustling market stalls of Southampton, it’s a real loss to the area. It’s bienniel ArtVaults show, based in and around the underground vaults of the city has also sadly been withdrawn until funding is secured.
A survey broadcast on Radio 4 yesterday asked people how important they felt funding for museums and similar cultural organisations was to the nation. Overwhelming support was given with one man saying ‘It’s as important as having the bins collected’ but when asked the last time those interviewed had actually been inside such an establishment, the answers were pitifully few.
Perhaps then if nothing else a lack of gallery space will force artists to take art to the people as it were, in a more creative vein, rather than waiting for them to come to us.
