Art / Spike island
Spike Island director Helen Legg moves on
The current director of Spike Island has been appointed the new director of Tate Liverpool.
Since Helen Legg’s appointment as Spike Island’s director in September 2010, she has developed an ambitious exhibitions programme focused on emerging and underrepresented artists alongside the growth of a dynamic internal community.
Over this period, Spike Island has seen significant increases in attendance and a raised national and international profile, and it now plays a leading role in the visual arts in the South West.
Legg was previously curator at Ikon Gallery in Birmingham from 2005 to 2010, where she was heavily involved in the development of Ikon, Eastside, based in a former factory building in Digbeth, an industrial area of the city.
Helen Legg helped to bring Lubaina Himid to Spike Island prior to the artist winning the Turner Prize in 2017
Spike Island chair Andrew Cooper said: “Helen has been instrumental in establishing Spike Island as a beacon of excellence at a very challenging time for the visual arts in Bristol and her reputation is rightly extremely high – both nationally and internationally – and with it that of Spike Island too.
“I am immensely proud that Helen has been offered such a prestigious and important post based on her highly valued work at Spike Island, and I am delighted that she has been given such an exciting opportunity and challenge at this stage in her career. We wish her the very best in Liverpool where she will take up the position in June 2018.”
Legg said: “I am delighted to be joining Tate as director of Tate Liverpool. The gallery has had a huge impact on me and I feel a strong affinity with the values of the organisation.
“I look forward to working with colleagues there and to deepening relationships with partners both locally and internationally to take the gallery into its next exciting phase.”
Main photo of Helen Legg by Yiannis Katsaris
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