Tate and Dozens of British Museums Are Calling on Boris Johnson to Fulfill His Promises to Increase Arts Funding

Tate and a network of some thirty-six museums throughout Britain
have asked for the new government, headed by the Conservative
party, to guarantee that all of Britain’s schoolchildren have the
arts in their schools.

“Tate today, together with the Plus Tate network of museums and
galleries, called on the new Government to ensure that all children
have access to visual art through an arts-rich curriculum,” says a
statement from the museums. The museums stressed that “visual art
must be a core part of the national curriculum in primary and
secondary schools in England” and asked “that additional funding
for the arts premium be implemented as a matter of urgency.” The
museum has issued this plea in view of what Tate director Maria
Balshaw called the “dire lack of resources” currently facing arts
instructors.

The museum has issued this statement in the wake of a landslide
victory by the Conservative party, led by Boris Johnson, in
national elections. Though Johnson last month promised £250 million
for culture and, this summer, promised an increase in education
spending, artists including Anish Kapoor, David Shrigley, and
others have expressed despair at the election
results.

Whether the new government follows through with its pledges or
not, the current state of arts education is dark, according to
figures from the Cultural Learning Alliance cited by Tate. The
Alliance points out that there has been a precipitous decline in
schoolchildren’s exposure to art, with a 10% drop in pupils
studying arts at the secondary level from 2017 to 2018, and a drop
of 35% in the years since 2010. For students applying to colleges
and universities, there has been a decline of some 24% in
arts-education enrollment since 2010.

Tate itself has pledged to support arts instruction in a group
of schools where artist-filmmaker Steve McQueen (who directed the
films Twelve Years a Slave, Hunger, and Shame)
has shot portraits of students in their third year of school.
Students who have participated in McQueen’s Year 3 project
will have access to digital and learning resources and gallery
visits, among other offerings from Tate.

“When I was a kid, I remember my first trip to Tate,” said
McQueen in the museum’s statement. “It was a real eye-opener. It
was wonderful to see an explosion of ideas and creativity, visual
creativity. It gave me an understanding that anything is possible.”
Year 3 grew out of a partnership with Tate, Artangel, and A
New Direction, and is on view at Tate Britain through May 3,
2020.

The Plus Tate network stretches from the island’s northernmost
point, at the Pier Arts Centre, in Stromness, to its southernmost,
at Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange, in Newlyn and Penzance,
respectively, along with better-known institutions like all the
Tate venues (Tate, Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool, Tate
St Ives), Turner Contemporary, and the Baltic Centre for
Contemporary Art.

The post Tate and Dozens of British Museums Are Calling on
Boris Johnson to Fulfill His Promises to Increase Arts Funding
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