The new exhibition 'Earth: digging deep in British Art 1781-2022’ and the installation on the back wall by Richard Long shows off the newly refurbished galleries perfectly.
Seeing sunlight casting shadows across the floor, walls and paintings is a novel experience and a welcome change from the oppressive white box galleries designed during the 1980's.
The Academy have just spent £3.8m updating the building as part of ‘The Light and Inspiration Capital Project’ so that not only are the galleries much improved, it is now fully accessible (despite the Disabilities discrimination act coming into force in 1995, modified in 2010 as the Equalities act, still better late than never).I look forward to more shows such as the excellent Albert Irvin and Abstract Expressionism show and the Frink, Blow Lawson show both of which had international appeal.
My only issue is that, as Bristol's main gallery, its four main rooms are not nearly enough for a regional centre and not enough to hold one’s attention long enough to stay more than 15 minutes, even with an updated cafe offer, however this is longer than I was able to cope with the truly terrible Tate Liverpool that I visited recently.
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