Proposal to expose under-used space in Edinburgh

At the beginning of this year I was walking along the Grassmarket and counted seven empty shop fronts on the street. I took a photograph of each one and promised myself I would ring each letting agent and find out the vital stats for each space. At the same time I was working on Clemintine Deliss’ Future Collections and put together a small survey for The Modern Art Gallery in Edinburgh which, via a few emails below, I eventually got answers to. I had the view to pair images of the abandoned buildings with photographs of the storage facilities of what constitutes somewhere in the region of 80% of Edinburgh’s Museum of Modern Art Collections (along with my survey information and vital stats) into some sort of book or document. For now this document remains in the proposal stages; half collated information, half idea. Here is some of the information Gleaned…

> From: jamie robinson [mailto:jamie_dodga@hotmail.com]
> Sent: 29 September 2009 16:24
> To: GMA Information
> Subject: Edinburgh Collections

Dear Sir/Madame,
I am in my 5th year of study at Edinburgh University/ECA on the Fine Art course and am looking to work on a social project investigating the collections in Edinburgh that are in storage. I am very interested in looking into some statistical information to do with the various percentages of art on public display vs. stored works, available space beyond these institutions and current works on loan elsewhere. I would be very interested to have a chat with someone from the National Galleries about their views on the current financial climate, its effects on what is displayed from within the collections and some opinions on a term that has been posed to me as 'recessional curation'. I would also very much like to visit some of the storage warehouses for the Modern Art gallery collection.
I hope you can be of help or put me in contact with someone who might be interested in talking about the collections in storage. this is not a college project, it is something I am interested in for my own research purposes although would be happy to get character reference letters from the college or uni if so required.
Many thanks, I look forward to hearing your response,
Jamie Robinson

GMA Survey: Collections and Storage

The following questions are one method of data collection for a study into the use of creative space within the city. They are merely going to be compiled into a non-bias, hypothetical set of possibilities, probably in book format alongside photos.

The answers below are from the Gallery of Modern Art. The PG and NG, our sister organisations would have similar but not identical responses.

1. Where are the main gallery storage sites?

Granton. Divided roughtly a third between GMA, NG and PG works, and also store of some display units. And Dalmeny, we have a store for plinths, showcases, cases etc. We have in the past used commercial storage for some plinth type items, but are consolidating all this stuff at Dalmeny now, where we have a new unit. We have quite a bit of storage at the GMA as well, in the basement.

2. Are these spaces gallery owned?

Granton is rented from the National Museums of Scotland. We had it built on their land.

3. What are the storage and space saving methods employed to protect the work?

Best if you go along and see (BLANKED OUT). but basically sculpture is shelved and pictures are on racks. At the GMA, works on paper (prints, drawings) are stored in solander boxes.

4. How many people are employed in the gallery? Storage facilities?

At the Gallery, dozens. The question would have to be refined for a sensible answer – we have registrar, conservation staff etc at the GMA – they also serve the PG and NG, and the Dean houses our shared finance and HR people, and so on. It’s not straightforward. At Granton, one in the store, but it’s on a big NMS plot and there are NMS staff at the security gate etc.

5. How many works are in storage vs. number on display within the gallery?

Ask (BLANK). But broadly, we have 5000 works in the collection, of which say 1000 are paintings, 500 are sculptures and the rest are works on paper (this excludes Paolozzi and Finlay collections, which are big). We can show roughly 300 at GMA Dean and the rest are in store.

6. How many works are currently on loan elsewhere?

Ask (BLANK), I’d guess about 100 from the GMA collection.

7. Does the gallery have to pay to loan works to other exhibitions?

-What are the loan proceedings, travel arrangements etc

-When is the responsibility of the work passed over to the other party?

Not sure what you mean. We don’t pay to lend our works elsewhere. Other galleries borrowing from us pay the costs and there’s a small admin fee. (BLANK) can answer the other bits.

8. Is this the same for the borrowing of work from other collections for a particular GMA exhibition?

Museums charge different rates. In the past, say 20 years ago, there was rarely a charge and even crating and admin wasn’t charged. In the past ten years, at least, charges have been introduced by most museums. Lending a work involves a lot of work involving conservators checking things, technicians packing them, hiring in crates, dealing with all the admin (customs, insurance etc) and someone has to pay for it, and these days it’s the borrower. We can’t absorb it. Again, (BLANK) has precise figures on this kind of thing if you need them.

9. How has the financial crisis affected the gallery in terms of exhibitions, display of work, borrowing and lending work, the permanent collections, (selling work)?

Well we don’t sell work – we can’t under MLA rules, except in exceptional circumstances. Less shows and borrowing from UK not abroad, are the main things; trying to use the collection is another avenue, but it’s striking how people will come for a paying show which has a defined end date, not for something which will always be here. There are ways around that which you can probably imagine – ie use the collection for thematic hangs and market it like an exhibition.

10. What is the next exhibition?

-How much of it is from the permanent collections

We’ve just opened a show called Running Time, about recent and contemporary art films, details on our website, and its got 100 works, almost all of them borrowed from the artists.

Final question (for my own interest)

Have visitor number reduced without the free shuttle service? If so then by how much?

Hard to say because we have never had a sondage (sorry, I forget the English word) on this, ie we don’t know who, coming in, took that bus. But it was coming in at about £70K per annum and was going to rise to about 100K and we couldn’t afford it. Numbers at GMA/Dean have reduced slightly, but it may be to do with some big shows we had in the last year of the bus (Picasso and Long).