Since this is the second (or is it even the third?) month in a row that the Museums Journal has featured a piece about the possibility of reintroducing admission charges, I thought it might be time to have a discussion about it.The route that the Saatchi Gallery have taken is particularly interesting, the first incarnation at Boundary Road had a charge of £3 in the late 1980s and County Hall was, if I remember correctly, about £8. However, when the gallery moved to the Duke of York's HQ last year free entry was sponsored by Philips de pury & Company, who are prominently displayed as partners. I wonder if this might set a precedent?
Free Schmee....I liked it better when Saatchi was up front and charged eight quid.....the 'sponsorship' by Philips de pury is tax avoidance/(evasion)....i.e. we ALL pay for it in the end......But that rant aside, the potential re-inroduction of admission charges is an important topic....let's make that a thread (instead of daft taxidermy...actually there is a relationship between the two threads....both are about being Stuffed!)
ReplyDeletemark
Quite right, we're all paying a tax-based subscription for our free museums and galleries, corporate-sponsored or not. If private funding is already an embedded mechanism in what we might think of, rightly or not, as our public institutions, the sponsorship of admission charges gives a tangibility to their role that can otherwise seem quite nebulous. It's also a cracking way to appear extra beneficent.
ReplyDeleteBack to Banksy (again), did you spot the profile of Steve Lazarides in the Saturday Times today? Pretty interesting. It's here if you missed it:
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article6680810.ece