All dressed up and nowhere to show

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Speaking at the Talbot-Rice Gallery last Wednesday, Dr Simon Groom - recently appointed Director of Modern Art at the National Galleries of Scotland - noted in Edinburgh a “vibrancy and generosity towards visual arts that can’t be found in many other British cities.”

But he also emphasised Scotland’s need for “ambition, scale, depth, and breadth to achieve national clout.”

Consciously or otherwise, his comments directly describe the dimensions of the kind of gallery space required to exhibit large parts of the d’Offay collection, the kind of gallery space Edinburgh doesn’t have.

Though Dr Groom was careful to avoid tackling the subject directly, his remarks closely echo those of number of experts who have highlighted Edinburgh’s need for a new gallery on a larger scale than the space currently provided by the Dean Gallery and National Gallery of Modern Art if the city is to permanently hold part of the d'Offay collection.

Although the works will initially be exhibited around England and Scotland, it is envisaged that Edinburgh will house a significant proportion of the collection in the long term. However, the city lacks a site equal to the task. An early suggestion of the renovation of The Blue Shed in Leith has been dismissed as impractical given the size of the collection and the scale of certain of its individual pieces.

John Leighton, Director of the National Galleries of Scotland, has acknowledged the problem. He said: “We have these wonderful buildings but they also have their limitations. They're actually quite small and intimate, so you have things in the collection like a Jannis Kounellis installation that we physically couldn't show here.

“But what about an iconic campus? I would dearly love, at some stage, to link the two sites together so there's one campus, as opposed to two sites split by a very busy and hair-raising road."

Mr Leighton’s ideas have been joined by more ambitious suggestions, not least from Mr d’Offay himself. The benefactor insisted his collection “needs a great building in Edinburgh” and made a grand reference to the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao as something for the capital to aspire to.

"Creativity, I believe, is dependent on education and part of education is contemporary art," said Mr D'Offay. "It is like food. You need it. You need it for your mind. You need it for your soul.

"Think of the effect the Guggenheim in Bilbao has had on the Basque nation and those people. As a financial investment, it's been something extraordinary. But for the creativity of the Basque people, it's been crucial."

Such vision is not currently shared by the Scottish parliament, which has recently confirmed its commitment only to improving the existing National Galleries and investing further in the Royal Museum.

That the exhibition of modern art can have a broad stimulating effect on surrounding communities is, however, a belief firmly shared by Dr Groom, who spoke last Wednesday of his experiences in his previous post as head of exhibitions at Tate Liverpool.

He emphasised the effect of the gallery in stimulating creativity in Liverpool and highlighted its role in the city’s appointment as European Capital of Culture 2008.

At the end of his tenure he set up a groundbreaking exhibition of iconic twentieth century art - which includes Rodin’s 'The Kiss' - and is expected to draw millions of new visitors to the gallery before it closes in April 2009.

He said of his move to Edinburgh: “I am hugely excited by the potential here, of a nation undergoing an important cultural shift… One must take risks. Edinburgh must have ambition to achieve clout like the Tate.”

Whether Dr Groom will emerge as a powerful advocate for a new gallery in the city remains to be seen. In the meantime there are indications that a site at Leith Docks has been earmarked for the creation of a multi-million pound arts centre, to include gallery space and an events and concert venue.

It is thought that the Millennium Centre in Cardiff has been recommended by tourism consultants as an appropriate model for a solution to Edinburgh’s lack of large-scale facilities. The council and developers in Leith have reportedly been urged to think big by the London-based Communication Group, which is creating a "world-class visitor destination plan" for the city.

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