7 March 2012
Eastbourne’s gallery is only South East winner in the Museums at Night competition
Eastbourne’s award-winning Towner contemporary art museum has topped the Connect10 poll with 55% of the votes to win artist Bob & Roberta Smith for a special Museums at Night event in May, including the first ever Museums at Nightclub.
Towner is the only museum in the South East to have won an artist in the innovative Connect10 project by Culture 24, which offered the public the chance to vote for their favourite galleries and museums to win a leading contemporary artist to take part in Museums at Night 2012.
Towner received more than double the votes of its competitors, Leeds Art Gallery and Bradford’s Peace Museum, with an amazing 1,115 votes cast for Towner.
Towner’s loyal audience and supporters really got behind the competition, and even Bob & Roberta Smith himself tweeted to his followers about Towner’s event. Smith is the alias of iconic sign-painter, activist and installation artist, Patrick Brill.
Voters and Towner visitors will have the chance to join the artist to Make Art Not War! at Towner’s Museums at Night event on Saturday 19 May, when the whole building will become one giant interactive creative space to make and display art and signs, from the shop window to the industrial scale lift. The event will be followed by the UK’s first ever Museums at Nightclub!
Eastbourne Borough Council Cabinet Member for Tourism and Leisure Cllr Neil Stanley said “We are absolutely delighted to have won the vote and can’t wait to welcome Bob & Roberta Smith to Eastbourne’s Towner for this unique Museums at Night event! I would like to say a huge thank you on behalf of Towner to everyone that voted and want to invite you all to come along on 19 May and join us for what promises to be a fantastic night!”
Towner’s idea was inspired by Smith’s iconic 1997 piece Make Art Not War, a sentiment that resonates with the Towner Collection – renowned for its modern British art, it houses many works by the conscientious objectors known as the Bloomsbury Group.
Smith’s encouragement to make your own art echoes Towner’s own ethos – with six Towner exhibitions per year displaying artwork made by the thousands of participants in Towner’s learning and outreach programmes, creativity and productivity are at the very heart of the gallery.
For more information on the event go to the Towner website.
