I’ve been kickstarting off 2020 with a series of gallery visits, The Hepworth and Sculpture Park in Wakefield, Salts Mill in Saltaire and this last weekend The New Gallery in Walsall.
The New Gallery is a stunning contemporary gallery, completed in 2000, they’re celebrating 20 years with 20 pieces of artwork from every year. This is a timeless building that really does not show its age, with beautiful foyer and many gallery spaces. The impression I get is the architect and stakeholders have gained a great balance of the spaces within. There is a community gallery for everyone on the ground floor with windows opening out onto the street. A permanent gallery of Jacob Epstein’s work, on the middle two floors with timber clad walls and flooring to give it a more homely feeling.
Next floor upwards is a large, multipurpose cliche white gallery. I say cliche as it is the typical blank canvas in which anyone can present any form of art or media. On my visit I discovered a mixed media selling cart with background noises and a full room projection of space and constellations, quite fascinating what contemporary art can be produced.
The next floor and at the very top you can find another gallery, which was originally concieved as a restaurant with beautiful large windows overlooking Walsall, but now covered up to create hanging space. The footprint and verticality of the gallery gives it a feeling of The National Gallery but vertical. The typology of the building gives a clever flow of an upwards ascent to be followed by a descent via the lifts.
Overall, I’ve really enjoyed my visit to this gallery and have learnt a lot about how different spaces are composed and the importance of a variety of gallery spaces within one building. I’ve enjoyed the usage of light within the building but am not entirely sold on the external composition of windows. I feel that the internal connection with natural light has taken precedence over the aesthetical design of the external envelope, although this is entirely personal opinion. I would definietly return to experience other artists using the spaces in different ways.
The Damp Patch 🧱 