Thank you to everyone who has sent messages of support over the recent weeks.

Walsall Council has been asked to make savings of £86 million over the next four years. As part of the proposals to achieve this, the Council has proposed reducing funding to The New Art Gallery Walsall to zero by 2020.

The Gallery’s core funding is currently awarded through a partnership between Walsall Council and Arts Council England, and further subsidised through grants, foundations, partnerships and commercial activity.

Further to the online survey launched as part of the public consultation, Walsall Council is inviting anyone wishing to comment upon the draft budget saving proposals to write or email directly to:

Budget Consultation

Walsall Council

Civic Centre

Darwall Street

Walsall

WS1 1TP

Email budgetconsultation@walsall.gov.uk

The Council have requested that the following points are addressed in any feedback:

• We ask that those who write to us tell us whose views they represent – i.e. individual, community group, stakeholder, artist, student

• Provide the proposal number commenting on. The New Art Gallery No. 36

• The overall opinion i.e. do not support/ support with concerns / amendments or fully supports

•  How the saving proposal impacts on them and whether they have alternative suggestions for how this saving can be made and provide any other comments they want to make.

Feedback submitted by letter, email and the online survey https://surveys.walsall.gov.uk/s.asp?k=147741448313 will be collated via methods agreed by Chris Holliday, Head of Leisure Culture and Operations, Walsall Council.

Public consultation is now underway for the proposals put forward by Walsall Council.

The proposals concerning The New Art Gallery Walsall are outlined here:

http://cms.walsall.gov.uk/saving_36_-_removal_councils_revenue_to_nag.pdf

To ‘have your say’, you can upload and complete the consultation document here:

https://surveys.walsall.gov.uk/s.asp?k=147741448313

To comment on the proposals concerning The New Art Gallery Walsall you will need to enter number ‘36’ when asked for the ‘Saving Reference Number’.

On the evening of Wednesday 26 October 2016, Cabinet approved the proposals as set out in ‘Rebalancing the Budget: Options for Consultation’ – public consultation will now take place.

To read about Walsall Council’s proposals regarding The New Art Gallery Walsall, see pages 117 – 122 http://bit.ly/2eneXec

As part of the £86 million in savings that Walsall Council have been asked to make over the next 4 years, proposals will be put forward to

Cabinet on Wednesday 26 October 2016.

Read how this could affect The New Art Gallery Walsall, here, pages 117-122 http://bit.ly/2eneXec

Congratulations to architects Caruso St John, who have been awarded the 2016 Stirling Prize for Damien Hirst’s Newport Street Gallery, Vauxhall, London. The architects, now famed for their intuative museum and gallery designs won an international competition to build The New Art Gallery Wasall. We are very proud and priveledged to have been the architects first UK public gallery project, with our beautiful building standing the test of time, now 16 years old!

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/oct/06/caruso-st-john-win-stirling-prize-damien-hirst-newport-street-gallery

The new banner artwork has been specifically made for the Gallery’s Window Box as part of Eva Rothschild’s Alternative to Power exhibition which opens to the public from Saturday 24 September 2016 – 15 January 2017.

Eva Rothschild is one of the leading sculptors of her generation and has gained extensive international recognition for her work. She works across a range of media including steel, leather, resin, plastic and fabric and her work is often characterised by the use of unstable geometric forms. This will be Rothschild’s first solo exhibition in the Midlands and the new body of work will include a specially commissioned piece using leather, a material at the centre of Walsall’s manufacturing industry.

Eva Rothschild, Alternative to Power, 2016 Dyed Fabric

A new version of The New Art Gallery Walsall lift announcements, recently recorded by Noddy Holder when he visited the gallery back in May, is now back and delighting gallery visitors once more.

Noddy said during his gallery visit in May “It’s always a pleasure coming back to my home town, and I am always interested in what is going on at the New Art Gallery.  Everyone should come and take a look, whether you are into art or not. There really is something for everybody, including the kids. You will of course also hear my dulcet tones guiding you in the lifts, what’s not to like!”

Noddy recorded the original lift announcements back in 2000 when the Gallery opened.  As the Gallery has gradually evolved the original recording became outdated and as problems grew with the maintenance of certain equipment  the recording had to be taken off the lift system a couple of years ago. However Noddy was never forgotten and the Gallery continued to receive many requests from members of the public to reinstate Noddy’s voice in the public lifts.

In 2014 the Gallery received a significant Capital grant from Arts Council England which has helped the Gallery replace and upgrade essential facilities throughout the building over a two year period. This has included major improvements to the Gallery’s public lifts, and with work recently completed it was an ideal opportunity to ask Noddy to record a new version of the announcements, and he was delighted to come back.