Shanay Jhaveri—the Barbican Centre’s first non-British head of visual arts—reveals his plans for the London institution

Shanay Jhaveri, the Barbican Centre’s new head of visible arts, is mapping out his future by contemplating the London establishment’s previous: “The Barbican’s first administrator, Henry Wong, described the founding beliefs for the programme as ‘trendy, thrilling and worldwide’,” he says. “I am protecting that in thoughts.”

In his new position, the Mumbai-born curator oversees exhibitions in each the two-storey Barbican Artwork Gallery and the smaller ground-floor gallery, The Curve. His first order of enterprise is to “cross the brink of those areas” and broaden the presence of visible artwork throughout the sprawling, Brutalist Barbican Property, which homes the centre. He desires to “meet the complete breadth of the viewers which involves the Barbican, however would not essentially have interaction with its visible artwork programme”.

This might be achieved by a brand new collection of site-specific commissions. The primary, unveiled on 7 September, sees the south Indian artist Ranjani Shettar handcraft massive semi-abstract floral sculptures for the Barbican’s conservatory. They are going to be suspended from the glass roof, hanging between tropical vegetation and above koi ponds. It’s the first time an artist has made work for the conservatory within the centre’s 40 years of existence, and solely the second time that effective artwork has been exhibited there (in 2021 quite a lot of Akari lantern sculptures from the centre’s Isamu Noguchi present have been displayed on this house).

Additional plans embody the primary UK institutional present of Soufiane Ababri in The Curve (13 March-23 June 2024), for which the Moroccan-born, Paris-based artist will present drawings primarily based on his experiences as an Arab homosexual man dwelling within the West. Ababri is more likely to incorporate a efficiency ingredient inside the exhibition, Jhaveri says.

Jhaveri’s wider programme additionally guarantees a renewed deal with materiality, particularly for site-specific commissions. “Once I consider the Barbican, I consider concrete—particularly its uniquely textured concrete surfaces which were hammered by hand to present it this splendidly haptic high quality,” he says. “There must be a logic underpinning this programme. Shettar’s work, for instance, is rigorously process-driven and materially targeted, albeit another way to the [architectural approach seen at the] Barbican, which makes for attention-grabbing dialogue and friction.”

Such generative friction is promised in what might be Jhaveri’s first Barbican blockbuster, opening in February subsequent 12 months: a cross-generational group exhibition on textiles that includes some 40 artists together with Magdalena Abakanowicz, Tau Lewis and the Girls of Gees Bend. Jhaveri says it’ll construct off the legacy of one other Barbican group present held final 12 months, Postwar Trendy, which helped to rediscover quite a lot of lesser-known postwar British artists, together with the painters Jean Cooke and Eva Frankfurther, the latter of who emigrated to England from Germany to keep away from persecution beneath the Nazis. “The mannequin of the postwar present allowed us to revisit sure intervals we expect we’re accustomed to, however by way of recentering sure figures inside these narratives. It mixed mental rigour with the enjoyment of discovery,” he says. The exhibition, he provides, will journey to the Stedeiljk Museum in Amsterdam in September 2024.

A brand new chapter?

The postwar exhibition was considered one of dozens organised by Jhaveri’s predecessor on the Barbican, Jane Alison. She left the establishment in 2022 after 10 years within the submit. Not lengthy earlier than Alison’s departure, the establishment’s employees base underwent a major reshuffle following accusations of racist and discriminative behaviour; greater than 100 such incidents have been printed in an internet textual content. A spokesperson for the Barbican says Alison’s departure was not associated to those incidents.

These accusations prompted the Barbican to fee an impartial evaluate of its working construction. Main staffing adjustments that adopted included the creation of senior roles in variety and office security.

“Quite a lot of work has already gone into constructing a brand new tradition during which all our persons are valued and supported. We’ve got an fairness, variety and inclusion technique, a transparent motion plan targeted on creating change, and a devoted group that’s supporting the organisation to get us there,” the Barbican’s chief government Claire Spencer says in an announcement to The Artwork Newspaper.

But racism and different variety points proceed to plague the Barbican. Solely final month, the artist collective RESOLVE briefly pulled their exhibition from The Curve due, partially, to alleged racist behaviour they skilled whereas planning the present. “Younger Black artists comparable to ourselves and different friends who search to platform their communities can’t be assured to be handled with respect and dignity when working [at the Barbican],” they mentioned of their determination in an announcement.

Responding to this incident, Spencer mentioned in an announcement: “We’re deeply sorry for the ache induced to the members of RESOLVE Collective and people concerned of their exhibition. […] It’s clear we’ve got much more work to do, however we’re dedicated to creating the Barbican a spot that’s inclusive, welcoming, and protected for everybody.”

To this finish, Jhaveri’s arrival is an indication of progress: he’s each the primary non-white and non-British individual to function the Barbican’s head of visible arts for the reason that centre was established in 1982. “I wish to create a balanced programme that targets audiences consultant of this metropolis’s variety,” he says.

And Jhaveri is not any stranger to diversifying Western establishments: he was beforehand the assistant curator of South Asian artwork at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Artwork—a task created particularly for him in 2016. There, he was tasked with correcting “blind spots” by increase the establishment’s assortment in addition to its programme of Trendy and modern artwork from the Indian subcontinent and its diasporas. He later took on the broader title of the Met’s affiliate curator, worldwide artwork. Throughout his time there, he introduced cutting-edge, multimedia exhibits by figures comparable to Nikhil Chopra and Nalini Malani to Fifth Avenue, and oversaw main acquisitions of works by Shettar, Mrinalini Mukherjee and Bharti Kher, amongst others.

On the Barbican, his affect has the potential to be equally far-reaching. The establishment’s management is as soon as once more in flux after Will Gompertz, the centre’s creative director since 2021, to whom Jhaveri stories, introduced this month that he’s stepping down. He’ll be a part of the John Soane’s Museum in London as director this autumn. A Barbican spokesperson declines to say whether or not Gompertz’s position might be changed.

The Barbican itself can also be altering form—the constructing is quickly set to bear a serious redevelopment. The establishment is now fielding bids from architectural companies for an overhaul of its buildings and infrastructure, deliberate to value between £50m and £150m.

With this comes the chance for Jhaveri to make his mark, and maybe even reify the centre’s founding ideologies, like its dedication to accessible and delightful communal house and cultural infrastructure—qualities which can be more and more uncommon in an period of dwindling public arts funding. “It’s true, the utopian beliefs behind the institution of this centre, the notion that it was important to dwell with the humanities, can’t be simply reconciled with the realities of right this moment,” he says.

What is evident is that he believes the Barbican’s future success lies within the arms of artists. “By inviting them to have interaction with the constructing and its diversified public areas, we hope their views, the way in which it will get metabolised of their work, will hold us related to the legacy of this Modernist icon, whereas guiding us as to how you can know and meet our current second,” he says.

This strategy comes with its personal challenges—the ultimate straw that led to RESOLVE’s determination to tug their present was members of the Barbican’s employees requesting that the group chorus from addressing the Palestinian freedom motion. The query is now: if artwork can might be allowed to spill out of the Barbican’s galleries, can critique enter them? Jhaveri’s activity might be, partially, to determine how beliefs established in a single century can face up to the realities of the following.