Rohan Silva: As arts’ old guard departs, young turks are great hope for London

Tate Modern director Sir Nicholas Serota
EPA
Rohan Silva2 November 2015
WEST END FINAL

Get our award-winning daily news email featuring exclusive stories, opinion and expert analysis

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

According to London School of Economics professor John Van Reenen, Britain has a bit of a problem when it comes to the quality of our managers. His research suggests that poor management is holding our country back — and there’s a big skills gap between managers here and the US. (So if you think your boss is rubbish, at least you’re not alone.)

Poor managers may well be a problem in the UK but when you look at the people running London’s top museums and galleries it’s definitely not the case. Whether it’s Sir Nicholas Serota at the Tate, Julia Peyton-Jones at the Serpentine Gallery, or Neil MacGregor at the British Museum, our city has been blessed with the most amazing cultural leadership over the past decade.

The impact of this dynamic management can be seen right across the capital. Almost all our major cultural institutions — from the V&A in west London to Sadler’s Wells in Islington — are in the middle of hugely ambitious building programmes, and attracting record crowds as they continue to innovate and engage global audiences in new ways.

However, over the next few years this halcyon era of leaders of the arts will be retiring or moving on, passing the baton to a new breed. This is a real moment of sadness — and a risk, too. After all, you’ve only got to look at the sorry performance of the England rugby team in this year’s World Cup — after back-to-back final appearances only a decade ago — to see how difficult it is for a new generation to do as well as the last lot.

This week at Second Home Culture Minister Ed Vaizey gathered together a group of the brightest and best of London’s young cultural leaders to discuss the Government’s arts strategy. The people around the table included Paloma Strelitz and James Binning from the Turner Prize-nominated architects Assemble, Grace Boyle from Shuffle Festival, Ksenia Zemtsova of Unlimited Productions and Hannah Barry of Bold Tendencies in Peckham.

What was clear from the conversation is that this new generation is shaping up to be just as brilliant as the last — but they also think in very different ways, and will undoubtedly take our city’s cultural life in exciting new directions.

For starters, these youngsters have grown up during a time of arts funding cuts, and they’re incredibly entrepreneurial as a result. Instead of relying on shrinking public grants, they’re used to rolling up their sleeves and coming up with clever revenue streams and cunning ways of rustling up money to fund their work.

Another thing they have in common is the way they make use of derelict spaces, which is another consequence of austerity: they don’t expect the public sector to build them a shiny new building any time soon. In under-used multi-storey car parks, old lighthouses and abandoned town halls, these cultural entrepreneurs are bringing forgotten places to life and sparking regeneration in some of the poorest parts of the city.

We all owe a huge debt of gratitude to our golden generation of arts leaders, who’ve made London a more magical, attractive and prosperous place. The next lot are shaping up to be worthy successors to Sir Nicholas Serota and company. and unlike our poor rugby team our cultural future looks healthier than ever.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in