Everybody out! (ctd.)
August 17 2015
Today is Dr Gabriele Finaldi's first day as the new National Gallery director. And what a day to start on - according to the NG, hardly any rooms are open, due to the strike action by PCS Union members:
Rooms open: Lower Gallery E, Central Hall, Annenberg Court (Take One Picture), 9–12, 51, 57–65, and 66 (Art in Dialogue: Duccio | Caro). NB: Room 1 (Sansovino Frames) will be open from 1pm.
The strike is 'indefinite', so who knows how long this will last.
For Apollo Magazine, Maurice Davies (formerly of the Museums Association) writes that Finaldi has inherited an organisation 'in crisis', and must urgently restore its political reputation. I'm not sure an institution that is a) better off than it has ever been and b) with more people visiting it than ever before, can be described as 'in crisis'. Maurice also writes that he thinks the PCS Union has:
[...] played the game well, mounting a dignified, sometimes witty campaign. It’s made full use of the gallery’s visibility at the heart of London, on the conveniently pedestrianised Trafalgar Square, an established place of political protest.
Since the recent Securitas deal represents complete defeat for the PCS Union, it seems to me that it has run a terrible campaign, and has let its members at the Gallery down badly. At the start of this dispute, there was very little appetite to go down the full 'privatisation' route among NG trustees and leadership. But the PCS' continuous grandstanding, for its own reasons, has left the Gallery with no option.
