“Drawing in Progress” at Mima.
Looking for a 'provincial' collection? You won't find it at mima.
What sort of things should a so-called “provincial” museum display? Some believe that art galleries outside London should, first and foremost, call attention to local artists: the Lowry Museum, in Salford, is a model of this attitude. But others would argue that the last thing people in Salford need is a gallery filled with gloomy depictions of places they already know: why not give them some Matisse or some Marcel Duchamp, so they can use their museum to travel to some sunnier elsewhere, or broaden their intellectual horizons?
A shining example of this second approach is the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art. Since inception, mima – as it lower-cases itself, in e.e. cummings fashion – has resolutely refused to behave as if the rather patronising label of “provincial” museum could even be attached to it. In fact it has consistently behaved more like a museum in Germany than a museum in Great Britain: a Kunsthalle for the North East, seeking both to purchase and to show the most influential, exploratory and engaging forms of modern art.
The secret of mima’s success lies in its overt emphasis on the field of drawing, one of the few areas of contemporary art in which it is still (just) possible for a modestly funded institution to make acquisitions without bankrupting itself. A year ago, in recognition of its outstanding track record, the Art Fund agreed to furnish the museum with a £1 million war chest for further acquisitions. With characteristic boldness, the decision was made to spend that money exclusively on American drawing from the 1950s to the present. This plan was based on two premisses. First, the director and curators wanted to show the way in which...
