Galleries Go for Strength in Numbers; the Liveliest Museums and Galleries in the West Midlands Are Joining Forces to Put the Region on the National Art Map, Writes Terry Grimley

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Britain is going through an art boom and museums and galleries in the West Midlands are determined to be part of it.

The massive crowds flocking to the new Tate Modern and other lottery-funded art galleries in London, as well as to a series of high-profile exhibitions at the Royal Academy and other venues in the capital, point to a significant economic reality as well as a cultural buzz. But is it a peculiarly metropolitan phenomenon?

The success of the New Art Gallery in Walsall in attracting international attention and transforming the image of this borough - in so far as its image could have been said to exist beyond a ten-mile radius - suggests there is nothing intrinsically negative about the region which imaginative programming and expensive, …