See the Light: Tracey Emin and Steve McQueen illuminate Durham gallery’s revival
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- The Light, a £17m redevelopment of a Durham museum that closed 10 years ago, opens Saturday with works by Tracey Emin, Steve McQueen and Olafur Eliasson in its inaugural contemporary art programme.
- The venue — formerly the Durham Light Infantry Museum and Art Gallery — now tells military stories on one floor and dedicates 500 square metres upstairs to contemporary art.
- The opening bucks a long dry spell for publicly funded regional galleries in England; the last wave included the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art (2002), Mima (2007), Firstsite and the Hepworth Wakefield.
- Tony Guillan, artistic director who joined three months ago, left Tyneside at 18 for London roles at Tate and the Southbank Centre and returned because of what he calls a "dearth of opportunity" outside the capital.
- The gallery launches in a county where Reform runs the council after Labour was virtually wiped out in the 2024 local elections, though curators show no sign of self-censorship — the opening includes works addressing immigration.
- The inaugural exhibition features Dan Flavin's fluorescent light tubes and a lightbulb piece by Félix González-Torres, made after the 1996 Aids-related death of his partner Ross Laycock.
- Curator Natasha Howes deliberately weighted the show toward women and global majority artists, citing a Spanish festival with 30 artists and no women as her motivation.
Why it matters: For England's regional arts scene, The Light's £17m opening ends a near-decade freeze on new publicly funded regional galleries and proves cultural ambition can persist under Reform-led local councils — Durham county council funds it directly, yet the opening show tackles immigration. Curator Howes's diversity drive addresses an industry gap she observed at a Spanish festival with 30 all-male artists.
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