January 2009

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It is one of the curiosities of the art world that a profession entirely devoted to visual matters should be so oddly coy about party clothes. I am used to the fact that black is the default option, but does everyone have to be so corporate? There were two big parties in London last night, and thanks to sympathetic timings (the V&A decided to stay open late) it was possible to attend both the announcement of the winner of the Art Fund Prize for Museums and Galleries in the spacious Art Deco hall of the RIBA’s Portman Place headquarters and the eagerly awaited unveiling of the V&A’s new William and Judith Bollinger Jewellery Gallery.
Museums seem to have taken an admirable belief that they should be well-run businesses to an extreme, judging by the sea of suits at the announcement of the Art Fund’s prize winner (the Lightbox museum and gallery in Woking) – it could have been a prize for the best-performing sales department in the south-east sector of a big business. There was even a well-polished ‘vision’ speech, delivered by the Secretary of State for Culture, Andy Burnham, telling us not to believe that the Government pitted ‘access’ against excellence. It was such an off-the-peg talk that it made me long for the old Secretary of State, Tessa Jowell, whose speeches could be embarrassingly gauche but there was at least a feeling that she had written them herself. Mr Burnham managed to keep smiling, despite the hourly updates on the Labour meltdown in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election, perhaps comforted by the sweetly sympathetic smiles of Lady Cobham, who presented the prizes. Thank goodness for Grayson Perry, who shone out from the sea of suits, spectacularly en femme, in Little Bo-Peep outfit.
The V&A’s party was as excellent as always – long, cold bellinis were handed round in the garden, which came into its own on a muggy evening. Many of the guests had a well-lubricated look, perhaps because the small scale of the new gallery meant long queues to see it and so plenty of opportunity to socialise. But the party-goers – corporate sponsors chatting to Marks and Spencer’s Sir Stuart Rose – had a what seemed like a deliberately dress-down feel. Even the presence of Princess Alexandra could not give it a glamorous lift – perhaps people were afraid of competing with the exhibits. At least Philippa Glanville, former head of metalwork at the V&A, looked particularly elegant with the best modern jewellery I saw – a spectacular brooch ‘by an Australian – from Leslie Craze’s gallery in Clerkenwell’, she told me. Perhaps the press office could simply have asked plenty of duchesses to attend, and added ‘tiaras will be worn’ to the invitation? But the gallery was well worth waiting for: it will be reviewed in the July issue of Apollo by Diana Scarisbrick.

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