Tate’s Nicholas Serota Fears High Cost London Will Force Artists Out

Nicholas Serota

Nicholas Serota director of Tate has warned that ‘London’s increasingly high cost of living is making it impossible for young artists to live and work in the capital’. “Over the past 20 years London has been one of the great successes in the field of creativity. That success is very much threatened at present,” Serota stated in a speech at Tate Britain at an event for Labour’s mayoral candidate, Sadiq Khan, and members of the Creative Industries Federation presented their plans to support the arts sector ahead of the 2016 London mayoral election, which will take place on May 5.

“Fifty or 60 years ago it was possible for a young British artist to live or work in Notting Hill or Camden Town. Frank Auerbach, Lucian Freud,Bridget Riley, David Hockney, they all lived in the centre of the city,” he explained. “Even 20 years ago artists would come to this city to train and then they would stay on after they had finished their studies and they would go on to win the Turner Prize, like Wolfgang Tillmans and Tomma Abts, from Germany; that is no longer the case,” Serota added. “Young students come and they are now obliged to leave when they finish their courses,” he said. “Young artists that might have thought of coming here no longer do because they can’t afford to live in London. That must give us pause for thought,” Serota added 

Mr Khan pledged to protect artists, musicians, and creative industry workers by establishing “Creative Enterprise Zones” where affordable space and reduced rates and grants would be offered.

Photo: P C Robinson © Artlyst 2016

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