Appointments
Artist Tracey Emin is to join the British Museum’s Board of Trustees, becoming the first female Royal Academician appointed to the role in the Museum’s history.
Openings
The Harris Museum has pushed back its reopening to 2025. The £16m project ‘Harris Your Place’ project had previously been set to be complete next Sprin, but Preston City Council now says its ongoing construction work has revealed the need for additional fire protection works, large-scale asbestos removal, and boiler replacements inside the Grade I listed building.
Exhibitions
The Design Museum has announced its 2024 exhibition programme, among which is an exploration of the work of Tim Burton. ‘The World of Tim Burton’ at the Design Museum will be final location for the exhibition and it’s its only showing in Britain. It will explore the filmmaker’s cinematic work, alongside his production as an illustrator, painter, photographer, and author. Drawn from Burton’s personal archive of art, photographs, sketchbooks, props and storyboards, it will focus on the recurrent visual themes and motifs found in his work. Runs 29 March — 08 September 2024.
Early next year Tate Britain will open an exhibition dedicated to portrait painter John Singer Sargent. Staged in collaboration with the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the exhibition will feature 60 paintings – including rare loans as well as works drawn from their combined collections. The works will be displayed alongside period dresses and accessories, many of which were worn by his sitters. Runs 22 February – 7 July 2024.
A new exhibition at the Science Museum will display more than 20 mechanical clocks, called zimingzhong, on loan from The Palace Museum in Beijing and never before displayed together in the UK. Translating to ‘bells that ring themselves’, the clocks used mechanisms new to most people in 18th century China.‘Zimingzhong 凝时聚珍: Clockwork Treasures from China’s Forbidden City’ runs 1 February 2024 – 2 June 2024.
Gainsborough’s House in Suffolk, has opened two exhibitions this week. ‘In View: Rebecca Salter at Gainsborough’s House’ is the first solo museum show in the UK dedicated to the work of the British abstract artist Rebecca Salter, President of the Royal Academy of Arts, London, and by association, President of Gainsborough’s House. Its second exhibition, ‘James Gillray: Characters in Caricature’ celebrates Georgian Britain’s “funniest, most inventive and most famous graphic satirist” in an exhibition curated by Tim Clayton, author of 2022’s definitive biography. Both run until 10 March 2024.
The Sainsbury Centre has announced a series of interlinked exhibitions which aim to “investigate how we can know what is true in the world around us”. The Norwich museum will host five key exhibitions across the year; ‘In Event of Moon Disaster’, ‘Liquid Gender, Jeffrey Gibson: I can choose’, ‘Rashaad Newsome: In the Absence of Evidence, We Create Stories’ and ‘The Camera Never Lies’.
A new M Shed exhibition is being developed and will open in March 2024, refreshing the theme of ‘protest’ in its People gallery. Announced via the Mayor of Bristol’s blog, the as yet untitled exhibition will include the display of the statue of Edward Colston, topped from Bristol Harbour in 2020, and exhibited at the museum in 2021. The statue will be part of an exhibit focusing on racial injustice.
Funding
Art Fund, the UK’s national charity for art, is commemorating its 120th anniversary with a new £1.2 million pledge. In celebration of its anniversary, it has initiated a fundraising campaign to support projects that increase museum accessibility and strengthen ties with local communities.
Image
Martine Gutierrez, Queer Rage, Imagine Life-Size, and I’m Tyra, p66-67 from Indigenous Woman, 2018. © Martine Gutierrez (Courtesy of the artist and RYAN LEE Gallery, New York). Part of the upcoming the Sainsbury Centre’s 2024 ‘What is Truth?’ exhibitions programme.
