When it comes to arts venues, the Landlord doesn’t giveth, but just taketh away. It’s true that museums are relatively resilient compared to some, less protected, cultural spaces; but many still risk being made into mausoleums.
Since the millennium, nearly 500 of them have closed down in the UK and those that have survived have to contend with the risk of being mothballed or demolished. Mainly, due to cuts in funding from local authorities, waning visitor numbers and infrastructural issues. Or property developers with pound signs for pupils.
The latest cultural institution to face the wrecking ball is perhaps the most ironic yet. Last month marked the demise of The Museum of Neoliberalism, an independent gallery founded by satirist and artist Darren Cullen and curator and historian Gavin Grindon dedicated to displaying the evils of neoliberalism: the late-20th-century ideology prioritising free-market capitalism at the expense of everything else. It is – get ready for the sucker punchline – being turned into luxury flats.
It would be amusing if it wasn’t so depressing. “It's life imitating art. When you live in a dystopia, satire gets overtaken by reality,” Cullen says. He’s busy simultaneously packing away objects and prepping for a closing party.
