Accountability in the arts - again…
Lovely little snippet that I nearly missed in The Times yesterday - Richard Brooks’ Biteback tells another story of secrecy and accountability in the Arts.
Brooks poses the questions “How much did the National Portrait Gallery pay for its video of a sleeping David Beckham by Sam Taylor-Wood, or the Tate for its latest Tracey Emin?” and admits he doesn’t have the answers because “Galleries and museums argue that revealing their prices would upset the market” - well, apparently this could all change.
The National Maritime Museum was quizzed recently about the cost of a sculpture and an independent tribunal ruled that the museum should answer the question as “the commercial interest of the museum was not well enough argued.”
Brooks also takes a gentle pop at the government too, asking “what it pays for its art collection, which must be worth a small fortune.”
Hot on the heels of the Sir Nicholas Serota/Chris Ofili scandal at the Tate Modern this story once again highlights the lack of accountability when spending public funds - a subject some newspapers and government spokespeople choose to ignore.
Read all about it here
Scandal at the Tate here