Turner Contemporary has proven to be one of the most popular galleries in the South East. Annual visitor targets for 2015-16,have revealed a total of 352,204 visits to the gallery. This comes two months ahead of schedule. Between 1 April 2015 and 17 January 2016.
Risk attracted 81,103 visits, making it the gallery’s most successful autumn exhibition since opening year. The exhibition has helped Turner Contemporary achieve nearly 1.9 million visits since opening in April 2011.
As the first major UK exhibition to explore risk-taking in art, Risk encapsulates the ethos of the organisation. Turner Contemporary is a place where innovative projects, risks are taken and dynamic new ways of helping visitors to see the world differently are developed.
The success of Risk follows Turner Contemporary’s record-breaking summer, when Grayson Perry: Provincial Punk became the gallery’s most successful exhibition since its opening exhibition Revealed in April 2011, with 192,177 visits – a 26% increase on the previous year. Southeastern reported an increase of 30% in rail travel in summer 2015 on the previous year, contributed to by Turner Contemporary’s high visit numbers.
Victoria Pomery, Director of Turner Contemporary, said: “Turner Contemporary continues to bring large numbers of new visitors to Margate. As we celebrate our fifth anniversary year in 2016, it’s remarkable that our pioneering vision all those years ago has transformed Margate and East Kent. Without Turner Contemporary, the regeneration of Margate would not have been possible.”
The gallery’s fifth anniversary year programme continues to be ambitious with a series of extraordinary exhibitions, new commissions, events and activities. Turner Contemporary’s forthcoming exhibition The Other Side of the Sky brings together the work of Danish artist Joachim Koester and watercolours by JMW Turner, opening on 5 February 2016 and running until 8 May 2016.
Later in the year the gallery presents Seeing Round Corners (21 May – 25 September 2016) and the biggest showcase of Turner’s works since 2012’s Turner and the Elements in autumn. JMW Turner: Adventures in Colour is a major show exploring Turner’s use of colour (8 October 2016 – 8 January 2017).