Museum-exhibition services

Tender description

Walsall Council wishes to seek views and opinions from the marketplace on the proposal to grant a long-term leasehold interest in the town's New Art Gallery. The Council wants to gauge the level of interest and welcomes innovative solutions that could meet the Council's objectives and financial challenges as well as meeting Arts Council England's funding requirements. Walsall's New Art Gallery exists to provide all the people of Walsall and the Midlands with a cultural and educational service of the very highest quality, and to act as a focus for civic pride and community identity. Its artistic programming, the presentation and development of its collections and exhibitions and its access and interpretation strategies propose a model of how art galleries can contribute meaningfully to 21st century life and culture. As an art Gallery of outstanding ambition and excellence, it seeks to disseminate its work as widely as possible, thus drawing national and international attention to Walsall, attracting inward investment and cultural tourism. Over the next funding cycle (2018/19 to 2021/22), we face both significant challenges and opportunities. Walsall Council cannot sustain their current levels of investment and so we are in the process of exploring the possibility for new partnerships and business models to secure a more stable future and to ensure that the Gallery and its programmes continue to be inspiring, challenging and innovative for the benefit of generations to come. We aim to present the New Art Gallery as an opportunity for an appropriate partner to provide investment and development support to ensure that both Walsall Council's priorities and financial challenges and also the ACE's NPO funding requirements are met. This opportunity presents the opportunity to engage with world class art and artists; to explore innovative new governance and management structures; to develop an exciting and ambitious vision and proposition to engage the people of Walsall and beyond; to raise aspirations and civic pride through the delivery of a world class cultural offer. We intend to attract responses from individuals or organisations that are interested in a leasehold arrangement in The New Art Gallery Walsall. The Council are also interested in other arrangements that could match the values and mission of the Council and The New Art Gallery, with a civic context — and the continued support of Walsall Council and Arts Council England as partners of the Gallery.