Frieze Masters Podcast 2024, Episode 1: Good Governance

‘What do we want the UK to look like in 10 years, 20 years, 50 years in terms of culture?’ – Victoria Siddall

The first episode of the 2024 Frieze Masters Podcast brings together Sir Chris Bryant MP, artist Jeremy Deller and new director of the National Portrait Gallery Victoria Siddall to talk about ‘Good Governance’. How can everyone in the UK access art? And what role should government play in the country’s creative education?

You can also find this episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Chris Bryant is the recently appointed as Minister of State at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport; Jeremy Deller is a Turner Prize-winning artist whose collaborative practice focuses on communities and Britain’s heritage; and Victoria Siddall is the new director of the National Portrait Gallery in London.

About Frieze Masters Podcast

The Frieze Masters Podcast is back for 2024, bringing you the annual Frieze Masters Talks programme recorded during this year’s fair. The series of seven discussions was curated by Sheena Wagstaff and Shanay Jhaveri, with the title ‘The Creative Mind’, and features 21 intergenerational and international speakers exploring how the art of the past can help make sense of the present.

The series includes topics ‘The State We’re In’, ‘The Faces of Community’ and ‘The Power of Painting’, with speakers ranging from artists – Nairy Baghramian, Jeremy Deller, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Shirazeh Houshiary, Mark Leckey, Glenn Ligon, Ming Smith – to curators such as Gabriele Finaldi, Glenn Lowry and Victoria Siddall, plus writers, thinkers, architects and politicians. 

Listen now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

The Frieze Masters Talks programme and the Frieze Masters Podcast are brought to you by Frieze in collaboration with dunhill.

Further Information

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^{Main Image: Courtesy of Jeremy Deller}

Episode Transcript

Jeremy Deller: I grew up in South London. And if you grow up in London, you're blessed with the museum culture. So my two local museums are the Horniman Museum, where I went to an art club, and I would explore that museum, and also the Imperial War Museum. Very different kinds of museums, but both very exciting for like an eight-year-old child. 

Also, I have to say, the BBC was a massive thing for me as a child, watching documentaries and films about things I didn't really understand, but it really opened a window for me and also watching music on TV as well. Top of the Pops was a huge thing for me.  

Chris Bryant: When I was nine, we went to live in Madrid and we used to go to a restaurant every Sunday with another family and it was called La Casa del Sordo. And it's named after [Francisco] Goya's house and they had sort of reproductions of all the mad paintings from Goya on all the walls. So I always used to sit next to The Drowning Dog. My father was the next to the, um, the two Titans battling. And I remember going to the Prado. And seeing, you know, the The 2nd[of May] and The 3rd of May, which is, I mean, apart from the others, they're so completely different styles of painting, you know, the precision of the one and the kind of almost impressionistic approach of the other. So that's my enduring memory.  

Victoria Siddall: That's a great one. Like you, I was lucky enough to grow up in different countries around the world, but actually, unlike Jeremy, didn't have a lot of experience of museums and art at a young age, but it was more about music and books. And, um, Top of the Pops was a big one. I went to a very strict school that only allowed watching one television programme a week, which was Top of the Pops. That was like the window into art and culture. But as a result, when I graduated, the art world, which I knew nothing about, held this real kind of exotic allure and I was very excited to sort of, attempt to work in it. So yes, very happy to be here now.  

CB: I've gone very high art. You've gone very... 

VS: But you are Culture Minister, so this is a very good sign for all of us. 

CB: Is there a requirement for culture ministers to be cultured? (VS: It's true.) I think we can detest this over the last few years. 

VS: Sadly true, but we're thrilled to have you now, Chris. Um, and we are of course talking about, you know, good governance and the state of culture today, but I thought as you are new to this, and I know everybody here wants to know more about you, I know that new ministers are allowed to select works from the government art collection to hang in their office. What have you chosen?  

CB: So it's the first, and DCMS [Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport] gets first dibs as well. Of course, rightly so. So, um, I'm in a fight with the, uh, Welsh Office and Downing Street over a Kyffin Williams. But, uh, I wanted it, I wanted my office to show the kind of the old and the new-s. So we've got, there's, and it's mostly done now. We've got an amazing, uh, Joan Eardley. I was a bit surprised that there were not more female artists in the Government Art Collection. No Elizabeth Blackadder. I couldn't find a Bridget Riley. And [Anne] Redpath I couldn't find either, so I should have said all of this to the Government Art Collection, didn't I? But we've got two Julian Opie-s, which are rather nice. And the one thing I've kept from my predecessor is a very large Grayson Perry. I've got a Sonia Boyce. It's a list of the 84 greatest Black women musicians in the UK. And so it's got Elizabeth Welch, it's got, you know, obviously Shirley [Bassey] and I mean a whole load of others. So, so it's a right old mix.  

VS: Fantastic. Excellent choices. Very good. Frieze Masters-themed.  

CB: And a John Linton actually, which they discovered at the kind of last minute as well. And they said, would you like it? Alright.  

VS: Um, well, I think you've got one of the best jobs there is to have in government and yes, so very excited to hear more of your plans. We thought as we're talking about, you know, such a good governance, Jeremy, you've been doing work around the UK recently with lots of young people. Chris, you're relatively new to your role as Culture Minister for the last three months. I'm just about to take over at the National Portrait Gallery in three weeks' time. 

It would be great to know what, what do you see around you now? What's the kind of the state of things in the UK at this moment?  

JD: That's a big question.  

VS: Do you want to go first, Jeremy? It is a big one. 

JD: I'm working around [the place], at the moment, I'm working in Bradford, Llandudno, Derry, Dundee and Plymouth. So I'm getting about a lot. And so I suppose what I'm seeing is a lot of organizations that are struggling massively. So for example, in London, the local museum, which has world class objects, which are in London because the British Museum took them to London, is crowdfunding to pay its electricity bill. So there's things like that, which are quite sad when you go into these museums that hold these incredible collections. It's a variety of needs and wants, but also conditions that a lot of institutions are in. I think museums are suffering maybe a little bit more than youth services potentially, but I see a lot of people who really want to get engaged and get involved, especially young people. So the need is there. It's just how it's satisfied. I would say in Bradford, there's a lot of excitement around city of culture, which is great.  

VS: And actually with the, um, the amazing [Joshua] Reynolds [The] Portrait of Mai [Omai], which was, uh, saved for the nation last year by National Portrait Gallery in collaboration with the Getty in Los Angeles, is going to Bradford City of Culture. And then on a tour around the UK.  

CB: Uh, my take is, to be honest, nearly every aspect of the public sector in the UK has, is really struggling. The years of austerity 2010 to 2014, I think have left a lot of our public sector, and in particular museums and galleries that are run by local authorities, or theatres that are run, and music venues that are run by local authorities, really having a very tough time. COVID provided its own set of challenges and now people are paying back COVID loans as well. I think, you know, that it’s a really difficult moment for the whole of the sector. And one of the things I'm determined is, if anybody hasn't heard that there's not much money around, you haven't been listening. 

VS: Um, but we're getting that message. 

CB: Yeah. Um, but look, I'm conscious that when we were last in power in 2009, 2010, I remember funding for the creative industries came from direct grant and aid, Arts Council, local authorities, EU funding, philanthropy and so on. That mix is now completely different. So we've got to look at this completely in the round, coherently. I want to, are there ways that we could be more creative about creative philanthropy in the UK so that it's, it goes to everywhere in the UK? You know, why is it that American people who become multi-billionaires, quite a lot of them go, ‘I'm going to give every single penny of my money away before I die.’  

JD: To My hometown as well. Not just London. Yeah. I mean, what's weird about Britain or sitting here in London is this could never happen in any other city in the UK. Whereas in Germany, it'd be half a dozen cities that can host a big art fair. It's just all here, isn't it? Yeah. And when you know that galleries and museums are struggling in London, that means outside of London, they're really, in a really bad place. 

VS: Yeah, it's true.  

JD: So, you know, you hear that all the time about London museums... 

CB: But also, and the other bit is that you have to have a creative education in every school. Every child needs a creative education, and it's just really depressing that you've had the dramatic fall in the number of kids studying art, drama, music, and all the rest over these last few years. We need to reverse that. Again, it's not something I'm going to be able to wave a magic wand and sort immediately, but we really do need to change that.  

JD: Is that a very costly thing, or is it just the will to do it, do you think?  

CB: I think some people have gotten into a mindset of thinking, oh, well, the subsidized arts can look after, will have to look after themselves better. And because the, you know, the commercial arts are doing fine. But actually I remember I went to the first night of Les Mis [Les Miserables] at the Barbican. I think it was October the 2nd, 1985. It was a Royal Shakespeare Company production. So actually, the connection between the two is the stuff that we need to do far, far better. You don't get one without the other. It's E. M. Forster's ‘Only connect!’. And that applies completely in the art market as well. My mum studied at Glasgow School of Art, and my great aunt studied at Glasgow School of Art as well, and so I'm kind of passionate about people being able to make a career out of art, but lots of people won't. They will only do it at school, and that's fine. But having learned how to do a perfect line may be valuable for all sorts of other careers in your future, and we know that all the art subjects are force multipliers in terms of other educational opportunities, because one of the things you need to know is to learn in life is how to express yourself and have the confidence to do so, even if it's just to answer the phone in a hotel reception. 

VS: I think actually, and it's wonderful to hear from the Labour Party that the arts will be coming back onto the curriculum and there will be this investment in the next generation. I think there's no question of how important that is. I hear from museums as well that in recent years, seeing that come off the curriculum, there's been an increased sense of responsibility from museums and art leaders to make sure that young people still have access to that. And I think it's been happening increasingly in museums because it hasn't been happening through the curriculum. 

CB: I'm not sure whether this is true, but I was told the other day that only five schools in the UK do art history A-level.  

JD: Well, and that'd be more than that, maybe five states schools. Yeah. There'll be plenty of private schools that are doing it.  

CB: So then my question is to, you know, how does somebody know that working in art, the art market is a possible career for them? Unless, you know there's the bank of mum and dad allowing them to work in a gallery for two years for no money. Or subsidize them in some other way. 

JD: Well, you find a lot of curators in London, especially the pay for curators is so low because they can assume that young people are being subsidized effectively by their parents. I mean, that, that does happen a lot.  

CB: I want kids from my patch to be able to have their own opportunity in this world as well. So they're looking for jobs at the National Portrait Gallery.  

VS: That's great. Call me up. In three weeks, though. I haven't started yet.  

CB: Can I just say how much I love the National Portrait Gallery?  

VS: Oh, that's so nice to hear.  

CB: I'm just thinking, well, it's a uniquely British concept. And I know sometimes we've always got a bit too obsessed in the way we write our history in the UK. It's about great people, individuals. And that's not, that's not the entirety of our history. But it is such a clever way of embracing, you know, what is the most important thing about this portrait? Is it the painterliness, or the, the art of it? 

Or is it the composition or is it the person? And I just think it's such a beautiful way of telling history. And when kids come to, from my patch, come to Parliament, sometimes, you know, they do the tour of Parliament and they all want to know where Guy Fawkes was, what it was and all that kind of stuff. And then they say, where else should we go? 

And I always go, go to the National Portrait Gallery, because you'll be drawn into paintings because you will recognize some of the faces that we're talking about.  

VS: Exactly. And it creates fantastic access points because of that. That's one of the reasons I'm so excited to be joining, is this unique remit that it has of both a sitter and an artist. I mean, the National Gallery is, you know, it's pretty great too. In fact, all of London's museums are really extraordinary – and free – which is the extraordinary gift.  

CB: I like the [Ferens Art Gallery] in Hull. (VS: I haven't been.) It's amazing.  

VS: Um, but yes, I think this sort of access point for young people is so vital – and art not being seen as, as a barrier or something that's not for them. 

And as you say, the NPG, you might come in because you want to see a picture of Marcus Rashford on the wall and that's there for you; but then you're in the door and you will see so many other things and learn so many other things in that process.  

There was a panel discussion part of this series that Jenny Waldman from the Art Fund participated in and said that 50% of people in this country, over [the age of] 16, have visited a museum in the past year in the UK. That's an amazing number of people and I'm sure that museums being free is a really important part of that. Let's not question that right now, Jeremy, but we'll investigate. Um, but that also leaves the other 50% who haven't, and I think that's a really interesting challenge, is sort of making sure that those 50% of people also understand... that particularly national museums, they own them, they're there for them. 

And one of the things we're looking at actually at the NPG is very early years education. How do you get people into museums when they're four years old, and sort of that become part of their life, so they're not sort of walking through the doors as a teenager feeling a bit nervous and wondering where they're supposed to go. 

CB: So Lisa Nandy [Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport] was very naughty yesterday, because she invented a policy which she hadn't cleared with me. She's my boss, so I don't think she has to do it at all. But she makes a very good point, which is, it's not just about getting people to go into museums, it's about getting museums to where people are. 

Because a lot of our cultural assets in the UK are housed in big cities, metropolitan areas, and lots of people don't live in metropolitan areas. There's no metropolitan area in Rhondda. And so one of my ambitions is to try and get more of the artworks, some in the Government Art Collection, but some in a whole series of different other institutions, including actually the Royal Academy and the National Gallery... Well, not so much the National Gallery because nearly everything's on the wall... but the National Portrait Gallery and others to tour more, to go to other places. What government can do is provide indemnity. I just, I'd love the idea of a massive Pantechnicon that arrives in your local car park that can bring 50 kids in to look at a [J. M. W.] Turner or, or five different artworks. 

JD: I hate to tell you, it actually happened.  

CB: I know there is one.  

JD: In Liverpool, yeah.  

CB: Yeah, but it's one. That. And I want 50. Because I'm conscious that sometimes our historic buildings for museums and galleries, many of them were built a long, long time ago. They're quite difficult for lots of kids. Because they go, I'm not meant to be in here.  

JD: Well, they're meant to be imposing, aren't they? They're like Greek temples and you have to go up lots of steps.  

VS: And, um, which again comes back to the early years thing of making people understand when they're very young, that this is a place for them and sort of trying to remove those barriers of access. 

CB: And when I was a vicar in the church, one of the things we tried to do was we tried to, we had all-nighters for kids – and I kind of liked the idea of doing all-nighters in museums and galleries.  

VS: Like a youth club.  

CB: Yeah, exactly. So that it's more that kind of vibe and they take possession more.  

VS: Yes, it's about ownership. Exactly.They should feel a sense of, not just visitor-ship, but ownership.  

CB: Obviously, no tins of soup allowed.  

VS: Ideally not. Someone described politics to me recently as standing, say, 20 years in the future, thinking about what that future needs to look like, and then working out the route from where we are now to that point. I just wondered, is that, is that something you're thinking about? What, what do we want the UK to look like 10 years, 20 years? Or even 50 years, hence in terms of culture? 

CB: Completely. Look, I, I want every child to have a creative education. It's going to take time. I want us to have the career paths in all the creative industries for people. It's got to be properly levelling up. 

So across the whole of the UK, all of these things. We've recycled ministers a lot in recent years, more than people have recycled at home, I think. And I'm very keen on not recycling ministers in the near future, because I'd like to have some continuity of service, so that you actually don't just start things but follow them through and get to a conclusion. 

And that's very much how we're trying to work in DCMS at the moment. There's obviously, you know, enormous resource implications. And we're going to have to work our way through those.  

VS: So you mentioned philanthropy, which I think is a really interesting one because, um, and as Jeremy, your point about London being quite a special case in that sense. There is so much potential for philanthropy in London. There are many generous people giving to the arts, but there are many wealthy people who are not. And you talked about the US and the culture of philanthropy there that is so different, and that not only the culture sector, but hospitals and universities rely on. 

And I think there's two things there. One is this sort of, this culture of philanthropy, it's a culture of giving. It's expected, essentially, that if you've earned a lot of money that you will give it away. But it's also about tax breaks as well, the sort of incentives there. And I wonder how in the UK we can create those incentives, essentially change the thinking around philanthropy, but also incentivize people to give. 

CB: Yeah. Um, you know, Gordon Brown, I think it was, set up the charity aid foundation and you know, that whole system of ‘give as you earn’, we all probably don't do enough of that in the UK. And maybe that needs a boost in the arm. I've said to anybody who's asked me, if there's a moment at which you think I, as minister can intervene and help to persuade somebody to cross the line and make a big contribution then I'm up for that. I think that's the kind of intervention that I think ministers should make. What they shouldn't is they shouldn't tell the Arts Council who to give money to and who not to give money to.  

VS: Agreed. Great.  

JS: That's also, it's a problem at the moment, people wanting to give money to museums because people are very aware of who those people are and where their money is from. So that's a complex factor.  

CB: Just going back to your question about 20 years' time. I think it'd be great in 20 years' time for us not to have to have a conversation like this. It's just like part of the fabric of our lives. I think the civic spaces should be better. Architecture should be better in towns. 

JD: It's just, you arrive at a lot of cities in Britain and there's more or less a motorway in front of the railway station where you are because of planning and so on, but something about shared spaces I think is really important. I think we've lost that.  

CB: Have you been to Chicago? The public art in Chicago, I mean you want to walk the streets because it's so amazing. I'd love that for every town and city in the UK.  

VS: Let's work on that.  

CB: I've got a plan. I haven't told my officials yet. 

VS: No tweeting.  

CB: We need to be more at home with our[selves], or at ease with ourselves as a nation. 

We need to embrace the diversity of our society so that we tell lots of different stories. One of the reasons I think the arts are so important is, obviously it's about your own self-expression, but it's also about seeing the world from a different angle. I have a friend who's a painter, [an] American as it happens, and I remember saying to him, well there aren't people in your paintings; and he said, yes, I'm in every single one. 

VS: Interesting. Yeah.  

CB: And that's the point, isn't it? It's about yeah, how you see that and that's, that's the particular vision that is in front of you. And I think, um, that's such an important part of how we enable the UK to be a, a bigger hearted country. I like the line in Shakespeare when, um, Fluellen, he's being satirical about the Welsh is when Fluellen says, as magnanimous as Agamemnon, I kind of want Britain to be as magnanimous as Agamemnon. 

JD: What do you mean by that?   

CB: Well, I think it's, he's just, it’s just lots of Ms and Gs isn't it? That's what it is. But magnanimous, magnanimity, I think is such an important part of, and actually it goes to philanthropy as well, because you have to have an element of altruism. But it's just... let's be a big-hearted country rather than a small minded one. 

JD: In 2019, I spent a lot of time, very near where you work, in Parliament Square, talking to people who are far-right [wing], effectively conspiracy theorists, and hanging out, because they were in groups, as you know, they're probably bothering you on the street; and what struck me was there was such a joylessness about them. 

They were so unhappy and they clearly, I would have suggested their cultural lives were very reduced and they had nothing in their lives really to grab onto. They're very down on Britain, very unhappy with the state of the country and I think it's just bringing... 

CB: You should see my Twitter feed.  

JD: Yeah, I can imagine. 

CB: Um, but so, so the bit that I get, I mean, a lot of people's lives in the last few years have been really... it's awful. You know, I went to the um, the food bank in Tonyrefail in my constituency a few weeks ago. It's a new part of my constituency. And they were saying that there are families where both parents are in work, but on very low incomes and not able – because they've got caring responsibilities – not able to do more hours. They're the people who are really making a decision about whether to feed their kids or put the heating on. 

And the kids are doing their homework, if they're doing their homework at all, wearing gloves and beanies now, in October, let alone what they'll be doing in December, January, February. And we had the biggest fall in living standards in our history. So I get why a lot of my constituents feel very, very aggrieved at life. And that again is where I think the creative industries are... They're an economic opportunity. They are better jobs and they are jobs of the future. It's why we absolutely have to make sure that this is part of our industrial strategy for the future. We'll all talk about steel and coal and all sorts of other things like that, but actually the creative industries are going to be our future. 

VS: Absolutely. And I think it's not just about the culture sector, [but] the impact it has on mental health, on the economy, the driving of tourism – which contributes over a hundred billion per year to the economy, and is mainly driven by culture. That's the main reason people come to London and the UK. So there's a return on that investment that's huge across so many different areas – education, health, economy, and so on. 

JD: You're going to have a new leader of the Conservative Party very soon. How are you going to avoid getting stuck into culture wars with whoever that person is? Because they're both going to be really into it. How do you avoid that?  

CB: I think what we as a government have to do is we have to change people's lives for the better. 

And I suspect that all of that is just going to feel a bit like a side show. I don't want to intrude too much on private grief in the Conservative Party. But. You've got two people who do lead with their chins, and both of their chins are made of very, very thin crystal.  

JD: But until you improve people's lives, there's going to be a bit of a gap, and they're going to start fighting culture wars, or start them with you. 

CB: Oh, yeah.  

JD: What's the best defence or best way around that?  

CB: I think people are sick of all that divisiveness; we need to get on and do things. And yes, you're right that some things will take time and all the rest of it. And heaven knows we've been saying that's enough for the last 100 days. 

But the stuff we're saying today about employment rights, I mean, that's going to be a big change for a lot of people in my patch. Let's see what the budget has to say. But the bit where I can have a material, make a material difference, is partly my DCMS brief in relation to all the things we've been talking about already. 

But also I have the telecoms brief and in science and the digital inclusion brief. So it's great that we're now making lots of artworks that are available throughout UK in every single museum and gallery in the UK available online. But if you can't download it because you've only got two megabits per second on your 4G phone. That's no use.  

VS: Yeah, it's very true. Something else that's come up recently I think is this sort of conversation about, and this is one of the other reasons I think your job is so interesting and has so much, such a  huge potential essentially, um, is that culture is upstream of politics and that often culture sort of leads the conversations and, because it makes people feel a certain way, and there was an interesting example of this recently with the post office scandal that had been widely reported on, in the media for years actually, as fact. But then when ITV made a drama out of it, and everyone saw it on television, that was what actually shifted the political debates and made something happen. 

And I thought it was a great example of the power of culture, actually, because it made people feel something, and that essentially resulted in action. And I wonder if you see more potential for that, like, that that power of culture, and is that acknowledged?  

JD: It's the power of storytelling, actually. It's the power of storytelling, yeah. 

I think that's, you know, the stories we tell ourselves as it were, that sounds a horrible cliché, I'm sorry to say, but about Britain. It's why Stonehenge is so interesting because it's continually being redefined and we're always talking about it as if it's the most recent building ever made, but actually it represents us as a, as people, Stonehenge. 

We see ourselves in it and our history, but also who we are individually, our spiritual lives and so on. So I think, yes, storytelling is, is, is what it is.  

VS: And that's something you've done so beautifully through your work as well with Stonehenge and through the um, the World War I performances that I think again, unlike reading a history book, made people feel something. 

JD: It's more visceral, I think.  

VS: It was very immediate.  

JD: Yeah, and people want it. I've have never, never had a problem working with the public. I often have problems working with institutions and museums.  

VS: Noted.  

JD: They sometimes, yeah. They get very nervous of the public. This is some time ago, actually, I was working with a museum in London and they were terrified of the public and living artists, especially, they were like to be really treated very warily. 

But I think that's changed. I think there has been a massive shift and you go abroad, you go to the US or France, and you can see they're looking at the UK. They're 10 years behind us in this, in a sense, or 20 even, but that's really encouraging. And I think the public love working with artists and doing stuff with artists, something different and unusual. There are no problems there for me personally. 

CB: It's certainly true that sometimes art, by distancing you from something, can bring it more closely into your heart. Whether that's, you know, events in the Middle East or events from the World War II or whatever, I was really struck by the fact, I went to visit Ubisoft in Newcastle a couple of weeks ago and they're, I'm not allowed to say what they're developing, but they're developing something and I was really excited by it. 

What was fascinating was, they're using archaeologists, historians, artists, as well as, you know, programmers and video games experts. I mean, it's a whole conglomeration and that, that is now a 7.7-billion-pound industry in the UK. But it's also massive economic investment. This is a, this is something that won't come out for another two and a half years. And I can't tell you what it is.  

VS: Watch this space. We'll redo this panel in two and a half years.  

JD: Victoria, can I ask you a question?  

VS: Of course you can.  

JD: What does the National Portrait Gallery mean to you? This is like your interview... 

VS: Well, which was actually quite recent. Yeah. Bringing back, yeah, some recent memories.  

JD: How do you see it? How is it different? Will you make it different from what it is now, or would you? 

VS: I mean, it's a wonderful place already. And as I've said, it's about, as you said, Chris, as well, it's about people. It's about stories. And when you go to the National Portrait Gallery, which I hope you all will, you'll notice that on the wall labels, the name of the sitter, the person portrayed, comes before the name of the artist, which is very different to any other museum. 

It's a representation of who we are as a nation. what binds us together. It's also human achievement. It's inspiring stories of people who've done extraordinary things. The museum reopened just over a year ago, after a three-year closure, during which actually I think 800 works went around the world and 500 works went around the UK. 

So good collection sharing then. And with that reopening, the collection was completely rehung to better reflect the society in which we live. the nation's history. There's now a gender balance, 50/50 gender balance of sitters. The portal, these wonderful stone carvings of male artists on the front of the, the building have been counterbalanced with Tracey Emin's bronze doors, which depicts over 40 drawings of women, kind of represent[ing] every woman. 

And actually, since reopening, 93% of visitors have said they agree that the NPG is for everybody. And that, so that makes me really proud. That's done already. So I'm walking into this place that's wonderful. I'm getting to, yes, another answer. And look, I think, you know, for me, there's an opportunity to really bring the museum to life through talks, programming, engaging artists in different ways with the collection. 

Um, but also it's sort of taking the collection out throughout the world, essentially. I think there's incredible soft power in art and culture, as you know. And the NPG can play because it tells the story of our nation. It sort of, it plays a really important role in that. Growing audiences, the reach, so not just the numbers, but the type of people who come to the NPG. 

And as I was saying, I think we've got this really unique opportunity to do that in an effective way because of the nature of the works on the wall and because you might come, you might not. Because you're interested in music or football or film or science or politics and you want to read up about your heroes and then you're through the doors at the imposing doors of a museum. 

So yes, just more of that building audience in the future. Also, I will say I haven't even started the job yet. So we'll have a lot more to say in...  

JD: But what about the remit of a national portrait and like who, who should be and who shouldn't be? Because you've probably got portraits of people who now we don't think actually should have had a portrait done, you know, [because of] things they may have done. Well, just various sort of politicians or people, industrialists.  

CB: Politicians at the top of the list.  

VS: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think there's also, but it's also about interpretation. And the stories of, of people are never one-dimensional. It's never like this person did a wonderful thing. 

You know, it's, there's always more nuance to that. And I think the, the interpretation of the gallery now, acknowledges that and of course reflects that people are complicated and lives are multifaceted. But it's a good question in terms of who comes into the gallery in the future. You know, should the people who contributed significantly to the history of this nation, but who weren't the kind of people who would have had their portrait painted, how do you represent them in the gallery if you are to represent UK? 

So that's something I'm really interested in, is that sort of like posthumous entry to a collection like this, as well as thinking about the present moment that we live in and who's contributing to that. There's a tapestry that Michael Armitage made that's in the NPG collection, which is of refuse collectors during COVID, you know, sort of key workers who were going out and collecting people's rubbish while we were all in lockdown. 

And for me, that's a really important inclusion in the collection. It's on the wall in the gallery, but that's, that's a progression. That's something that's starting to happen and to change in that collection already. But yes, plenty to do there for the future. Thank you. Thank you very much, Jeremy and Chris.