, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
National contemporary art gallery: Ministerial evidence session
On the digital collection, are you talking about?
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
National contemporary art gallery: Ministerial evidence session
Whether it's branded or not? Maybe not. But talking to people that I know locally, and talking to them about, 'Would you like to see a national art gallery in Merthyr Tydfil?' for instance, people go, 'Yes, wow, that would be great'—[Interruption.] Of course…
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
National contemporary art gallery: Ministerial evidence session
Maybe it doesn't, but, again, I do think it is important that the message we send to the people of Wales is that we believe everybody in Wales, wherever they live, should be able to access the national art in their own local communities.
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
National contemporary art gallery: Ministerial evidence session
It is. It is. And I think that is an absolutely fair point, and I think the branding around it will be very important, that people recognise that as the branding—much like, as I say, we talked about the national museum for Wales, Amgueddfa Cymru—that we have…
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
National contemporary art gallery: Ministerial evidence session
Okay.
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
National contemporary art gallery: Ministerial evidence session
—what all the criteria are. And we even summarised it in the paper, to set out very clearly what we are looking for. We set out very clearly, in that ministerial submission, what we were looking for out of a contemporary art gallery: 'a) A network of…
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
National contemporary art gallery: Ministerial evidence session
So, I hear what you say, Alun, and, as I say, none of what you're saying is a surprise to me, because you've expressed this before. But in the evidence paper that we submitted to the committee for this session, that does contain, for the anchor gallery, a…
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
National contemporary art gallery: Ministerial evidence session
With the criteria, yes.
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
National contemporary art gallery: Ministerial evidence session
It was in the evidence paper.
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
National contemporary art gallery: Ministerial evidence session
Yes, yes.
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
National contemporary art gallery: Ministerial evidence session
Can I be very clear, Alun? What we have done is we've set out the high-level policy, and the high-level direction. We've made it very clear that the delivery partners for this are the national museum and the national library and the Arts Council of Wales. And…
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
National contemporary art gallery: Ministerial evidence session
No, no, no. The sites themselves must be able to determine what is the best art to be displayed in a particular area. It could be different in different areas.
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
National contemporary art gallery: Ministerial evidence session
That would be part of it. That would be part of it. It would have a curatorial role as well, but the dispersed sites will have curatorial freedom to have exhibitions there that they think are appropriate for their sites, their communities and so on.
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
National contemporary art gallery: Ministerial evidence session
Well, one of the things that is difficult about this, and this is where I do agree with you, is that to a large extent we are expecting the delivery partners to develop that business plan for the anchor gallery. We have said that, in very general terms, we…
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
National contemporary art gallery: Ministerial evidence session
We have to wait and see what the business case provides.
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
National contemporary art gallery: Ministerial evidence session
And we don't know if the Anglesey site will be the final anchor site, because there will only be one. It's just that what we wanted was, when we were looking to make the decision on which would be the most appropriate site, that we would have options to…
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
National contemporary art gallery: Ministerial evidence session
I'm not accepting it, no.
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
National contemporary art gallery: Ministerial evidence session
So, what this will do is it will mean, as we responded in, I think, an answer to a question from Delyth earlier about the amount of floor space it will have—we will provide that information to you—that it will increase the amount of exhibition and floor space…
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
National contemporary art gallery: Ministerial evidence session
Well, given the number of pieces of art that we have in the national collections, it would take one almighty huge building to have all of those pieces of art on display at any one time.
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
National contemporary art gallery: Ministerial evidence session
Well, one of the things that I said earlier in answer to an earlier question is that, if we find that there are gaps in locations in terms of the establishment of sites, then we'll look to plug those gaps, because the model is one that can be scaled up or…
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
National contemporary art gallery: Ministerial evidence session
Fabulous.
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
National contemporary art gallery: Ministerial evidence session
One of the anchor sites is potentially in the Valleys.
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
National contemporary art gallery: Ministerial evidence session
Let's just say Cardiff, for instance, but then everybody would go and see that. Well, that's not necessarily something that everybody can do. And what we're not trying to do here is just develop a tourism attraction. What we're trying to do is bring art to…
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
National contemporary art gallery: Ministerial evidence session
Not this time—we didn't do that this time. Anyway, let's not go down there. But the concept of this is that we should be taking art to the people, not bringing people to the art. So, I know that you've expressed your view to me previously, as I've said. You…
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
National contemporary art gallery: Ministerial evidence session
Well, we'll have to wait and see, but you and I, Alun, also stood on a manifesto that said that we were going to deliver this.
