3. Reading Free Galleries and Museums

Since 2001, many UK galleries have become largely free of charge, with a fee only for their newest shows. This is part of an ongoing move to make art accessible to all and not just a well-heeled, highly educated elite. Many galleries run education programmes for schools and their local community, so that people are actively encouraged into cultural spaces. The result has been millions more attendees in the past few years.

So, where can you go?

There are hundreds of museums in the UK. Here we pick out just a few, and show the wide variety of buildings that have become arts spaces in the past few years. Just as former warehouses have turned into stylish loft apartments in many cities across the UK, so many buildings with quite different original uses have been reappropriated as galleries. Often this is linked with regeneration, as cities find new ways of thriving despite the end of the heavy industries like manufacture and shipping.

Regenerated Tate

The Tate Gallery has branches in Liverpool, St. Ives, London Millbank (for UK art, including very recent work) and Tate Modern in an ex-power station on the South Bank (for international modern art). The Liverpool gallery is part of the Albert Dock, which first opened in 1846 and used to store tea, silk and spirits from the Far East. But by 1972 the buildings, already half derelict, were closed. In 1981 the Toxteth riots showed the urgency of regeneration in Liverpool, and as part of that work Tate Liverpool was planned. The gallery was opened in the early 90's, but not finally completed until 1998. The Gallery shows a wide mixture of modern and contemporary art, including photography, printmaking, video, performance and installation as well as painting and sculpture. It covers foreign as well as UK art and has worked with galleries across the world.

Startling asymmetry

In Manchester, another former docksite, Salford Quays, has been transformed into a cultural space. The Lowry Gallery is a brand new 21st century building, a startling asymmetrical shape on the skyline, that houses a theatre as well as gallery space. Sculptures of stacks of boxes, and enormous anchor chains casually scatter the path towards the Gallery, haunting the area with its industrial past.

Old and new

In London free galleries include the Serpentine Gallery in a small pavilion-like building in the middle of Hyde Park, specializing in recent work. The Geffrye Museum resides in a former almshouse in East London. It exhibits interior design and marries old and new. The visitor goes through a series of rooms showing fashionable sitting rooms through the centuries from the 16th to the 20th century. You can also see them online. Over Christmas, each of the rooms is decorated as it would have been for Christmas in that century. The Geffrye also has changing exhibitions of recent work, and is involved in community education work. The larger and more famous Victoria & Albert museum also has a mixture of old and new design.

These are just the tip of the iceberg – you can find out about over 3,000 museums and galleries on the 24 hour museum site which showcases the best museums from around the UK.

Decide whether the following statements are true or false.

1. Galleries in the UK have always been free.

2. All shows in all galleries are always free.

3. Not many more people go to galleries now they are free.

4. Lots of galleries are in old buildings which have been converted.

5. Tate Liverpool was once a warehouse on the docks.

6. Tate Liverpool has no connection with Tate Modern in London.

7. The Lowry in Manchester was also a warehouse.

8. The Lowry has a theatre as well as a gallery.

9. The Serpentine Gallery is in the middle of Regents Park.

10. In the Geffrye Museum you can see how it was to live in the past.