Southampton City Council’s Art Gallery has just bought a painting by Bridget Riley, one of our greatest artists. It will fill a gap in what is the finest collection of 20th century British art outside London. From an art lover’s point of view, it would have been nice if the reaction from the local paper hadn’t been ‘Is this really worth £¼m of your cash?’
It’s not that questions like Is It Art? and Is It A Waste of Money? aren’t worth asking- they may even sell newspapers- but, after 50 years, I wish they’d change the record!
Of course there’s no such thing as bad publicity in the sense that at least the purchase got high profile coverage. If nothing else, it shows the Gallery is important and it will lead to more visits. But good publicity is better. This story could have been about the benefits of modern art to the community (Tate Modern has shown the way). We could have read about the extra visitors to what is already a major attraction, the added appeal to investors of a city of culture, oh and the art itself- the opportunity for we locals to see a major work of modern art and get emotional and intellectual stimulation from engaging with it.
As an art-loving PR person, my advice to any regional Public Art Gallery which buys a new work of modern art is- get in first with a sympathetic journalist who will write a positive story before the local government reporter gets hold of it and makes it a story about the crazy spending Council.
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