Turner Centre - Latest Pics

If, like me, you don't get to Margate much these days, you, like me, will be surprised how quickly they're getting on with the Anthea Turner Centre! One of my few remaining chums north of Winterstoke Crescent has just sent me these photos he took over the weekend:





Actually, that's given me an idea. Last week I let you scrawl all over the Pleasurama hoarding. How about this week we scrawl all over the Turner hoarding? Given the revelation that a 'very senior' Thanet Council apparatchik believes anyone who thinks the Turnip's a bad idea is an 'arsehole' (his words not mine), how about this to redress the balance:

Top Thanetians Turn Turner Trustees

By Isle of Thanet Gazunder Arts Correspondent Dwight L. E. Fant

Three fab Thanet funsters are among the top knobs appointed to put the ART in mARgaTe this week! The news follows the announcement of the board of trustees for the town's futuristic Turner Contemporary gallery, due to open in 2010/11/12/13 etc etc. (Get on with it - Ed.) Here they tell the Gazunder about themselves, and their hopes for the gallery.

Colonel Sir Richard 'Bogey' Green. Following a successful career in the Boer War, Sir Richard was Chairman of Allied Washers until he retired to Thanet in 1948. He regards himself as a traditionalist when it comes to art. 'I don't like that modern crap,' he told the Gazunder. 'The wife is a fan of that Vettriano bugger though.' Sir Richard is 136.

Brittany Barker. As if being an artist and single mum to 33 little 'uns wasn't enough of a challenge, Brittany's now set her beady eyes on the Turner. 'I've got a bone to pick with all these knockers,' she says. 'It's all about standards, and I'm going to make sure they put as many lamp standards around the gallery as possible.' Brittany is 19.

Barry Nutter. Local musician Barry is well known on the Thanet pub scene, where he's a familiar sight fronting his band The Barrytones. 'I think it's great,' says Barry. 'It's about time they did up the Winter Gardens, and I'm going to be the first to bring the house down when it reopens with my new rock'n'roll opera Barry Nutter Goes Bloody Nuts!' Barry is 67.

(That's enough trustees - Ed.)

KCC To Sue Designers Of Turnip

My gratefulness to regular reader Ian J to detach a history in today's Building Design website that claims Kent County Council is going ahead with a law suit against the architects who brought you Turnip Mark 1.

If you memory, the T1 'offshore' was ditched in 2006 after projected costs soared to £50m, to be substituted by the current project 'onshore', a mere snip in £17.5m. KCC lost around £6m of your taxpayer mazoulians in the process and now want apparently some of it back. All we need is now three aborted attempts more and we will have our very own T5!

Meantime, I hear the Agency of the South East of the Development of England (SEEDA), which is co-funding the Turnip to tune of £4m, am making noises grumbling on the time length it is taking to getting anything off the ground. The word is that if they do not see the progress soon they've threatened to spend their (our) money in something else!

Estale to read the history of KCC in the Web site of BD here

Turneround Moscow

While you lot debate whether there will or won't be actual Turner paintings in Margate's proposed Turner Gallery (see Open F-All Hours below), one place that is going to get a lend of the master's splendid daubs does indeed begin with an 'M'. Unfortunately it ends with an 'oscow'.

Apparently, Russian millionaire Alisher Usmanov, who owns 25% of Arsenal Football Club, has underwritten the enormous insurance costs of putting on a Turner exhibition, and now Moscow's Pushkin Museum will display 112 oils and watercolours for three months this coming November.

The Turners are currently on display in Dallas, and I detect a pattern emerging here. It would seem that, in order to get Turner's works displayed in your home town, you need to be in possession of great quantities of oil, gas and millionaires. Well, oil we might be able to scrape off the beaches. Our council can provide the gas. And Ramsgate's got the millionaires! Sorted!

Click here for full story in The Times

Separated At Birth?

Reader Samantha writes:

I wonder if anyone else has spotted a similarity between the new design for Margate's Turner Contemporary, and those ice cream kiosks down on Ramsgate front? Are they by any chance related?

Ice cream kiosk

£25m art gallery

Turnip 2.2

I see architect David Chipperfield, still glowing no doubt from receiving the RIBA Stirling Prize less than a fortnight ago, has presented revised plans for Margate's proposed Turnip Centre.

The previous design was criticised in some circles for resembling a power station. But the lad's now really pulled out the stops, and his latest effort looks more like a bus station. He's quoted as saying:

If you do a good project, if you make a good institution where you get the architecture, the idea and the role in the community right - then you can be guaranteed that people will come and look at it.

Well, David, for £25m of our taxpayers' money (so far), I'm sure we'll all want to come and gawp!

Full story

Press Trip

Let's hope the three wise journos who are expected to visit our shores tomorrow are better researched than the Sunday Times. Murdoch's organ featured yet another glowing eulogy to the wonders of the East Kent property market at the weekend, stating:

Ramsgate has been spoken of as a new Brighton, while Margate – which locals say has Kent’s best beach – could get a boost from the opening, later this year, of the Turner Centre.

Or maybe they know something we don't, and Plan C involves a marquee in the Rendezvous car park?

Full Sunday Times report.

Separated At Birth?

Reader Samantha writes:

I wonder if anyone else has spotted a similarity between the new design for Margate's Turner Contemporary and the disused power station on the other side of the island at Richborough? Are they by any chance related?

Richborough

Turnip

Turnip Circus In Town

I was idly thinking of tooling over to the Winter Gardens to take a squiz at Stage C of the Turner Contemporary design, which the architects are going to treat us poor mortals to this evening.

But frankly I can't be arsed. If you go, and it looks any better than Stage B (see below), do let me know. No, on second thoughts, don't bother.

Art Monitor

I haven't been firing on all one cylinder recently, must be the shock and desolation of not getting the speaking clock gig. And Bev, my agent, promised I'd be a shoo-in. Shows what she knows.

Consequently I omitted to mention that I bumped into one of the Ile's most influential wrinkly rockers during my sojourn in the Arsonists' Playground on Monday night. Genial Margatonian Mark Hewins, who plays with Saint Gob of Beldof, was instrumental in the guerilla music protest at the Turnip Centre's M&S wing last year, which was at the time exhibiting a huge black rubber ball and some other things.

You can read all about Mark's search for a pair of authentic, artistic, grass root Reg Grundies on his website.

Speaking of grass roots art, yet another new blog sprang up here in the Monte Carlo of Kent yesterday. Zumi means 'buzz' in Esperanto and 'that's the only explanation you get for now...'. The blog also links to ThanetCAN (Creative Arts Network), which sports a jolly nice photograph of the Grand Turk leaving the Royal Harbour yesterday. And that's about it so far.

Blimey, we can't grow caulis anymore here on the Ile de Thanet, but boy, can we grow blogs!

Roll Up! Roll Up!

The Chipperfield circus is back in town next month. Although I'm afraid this is one circus where the clowns could well end up making the taxpayers, rather than the children, cry.

Yes, I'm talking about the Turnip Centre! The Anthea Turner Centre! The Ike and Tina Turner Contemporary! The latest mail-out from the Mysterons informs me that the architects 'will present the latest progress on the design for the new gallery on Monday 18 June, 18.00-20.00' (6pm to 8pm in old money) 'at the Winter Gardens, Margate'.

The presentation 'is open to the public and places will be allocated on the night on a first come, first served basis'. What's the betting that everyone with a vested interest miraculously manages to come first and be served first?

And what are they going to present to us? Well, we've already seen stages A and B, viz:

And:
Now we're going to be treated to stage C, which, we're told, will 'provide a more detailed internal layout and a clear direction of the building form and range of construction materials under consideration'.

Presumably the architects will then diligently proceed through stages D to Y, culminating in stage Z:

Trebles all round!

Foam And Away

The weather was so tickety-boo this afternoon that I thought I'd whip out my old throbber and take a wobble over to Margate for a gander at the Turnip Centre exhibition at the Winter Gardens.

By now those architect Johnnies must have come up with some pretty spectacular ideas for our 17m squid, I opined as I piloted my gleaming machine effortlessly towards the Arsonists' Playground.

At first, though, it was difficult to spot the, er, impressive model of our new flagship gallery within the cavernous expanse of the venue...


But then - there she blows!


Mind you, they haven't just been filing their nails all this time. Here's another...


Oh, and another...


And this one's the most spectacular of all...



A magnificent addition to the Margate seafront, I'm sure you'll agree. Now all it needs is some flowers to stick in it.

To be fair, the chap who was showing people around did say that final plans wouldn't be published until June. Of course, it would have been nice to have chatted it through with the design team, but I was told they were all out to lunch.