Vote early, vote often
What a difference a week makes. Just before setting off on my hols, I mentioned the fact that Kelvingrove was lagging in the polls for the £100,000 Art Fund Prize for Museum of the Year.
At the time, the Wedgwood Museum in Stoke was in the lead with almost half the online vote.
Kelvingrove had a mere 10%.
Then, in the space of a week, Kelvingrove took the lead.
If voting had closed on Wednesday at midnight, as planned, it would still have been in the lead but by Thursday lunchtime, the Wedgwood Museum had returned as favourite.
Then came the news that the Guardian website - which was running the poll - had closed down the site after had been discovered.
I'm told they were concerned about the extra 15,000 votes cast for Kelvingrove at the last minute and wanted to investigate possible "unusual fluctuations".
Over at Culture and Sport Glasgow, they're adamant it was simply a last minute flurry of votes, part of a concerted campaign to boost the museum's votes.
They say they sent staff e-mails to encourage last minute votes, and persuaded the Evening Times to get on board, despite their reservations about sending readers to another newspaper's website.
When the numbers rallied, they got coverage on radio and television, encouraging further voting.
"It's a popular museum and when people found out it was lagging behind, they voted, it's that simple,"says my source at Kelvingrove.
"It then became a viral thing, with people using Facebook and Twitter to spread the word.
"As far as we're aware there's nothing irregular about it at all - it's just late voting."
And that's an opinion The Art Fund shares.
It says the Guardian has verified the voting is correct and that the People's Choice vote will be announced as planned in London, on Wednesday night.
However, the overall decision for the prize lies with the judges, chaired by Lord Puttnam, and it's clearly overshadowed the prize in the first year it's asked the public to make its opinions known.
Not London’s South Bank, but the south bank of the River Clyde in Glasgow - every bit as lively in cultural terms as its namesake. I’m Pauline McLean, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Scotland’s arts correspondent, and I’ll be blogging here about arts events and issues happening across the country.
Comment number 1.
At 17th Jun 2009, haggis1876 wrote:To be honest, i think the whole competition is flawed. Unless you have been lucky enough to have visited all the museums in question, how can you possibly have an opinion?
P.S. I liked the Kelvingrove better before it had its revamp!
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Comment number 2.
At 17th Jun 2009, Rubodach wrote:Mr. Haggis is correct. Seems like a rather dumb competition to me -- online voting for places voters may never even have heard of.
Furthermore, the revamped display layout of Kelvingrove is awful .. it truly sets my teeth on edge. There is nothing of value about trying to be trendy. Hopefully, the displays will be fixed when the next wave of fashionistas come along to meddle. As ever, the building remains beautiful and the restuarant plus museum staff are both rather good.
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Comment number 3.
At 17th Jun 2009, jennybookgroup wrote:Yes the Kelvingrove permanent exhibit about history of Glasgow is dreadful. All sectarianism and poverty. Nothing much about the great heritage of the second city of the Empire and history of shipbuilding and engineering innovation.
However there are some nice interactive exhibits that my kids love. And an interesting display of art. But there are also exhibits which are unlabelled - I think we are just supposed to stand and marvel at the colours.... !
As you say though the building is great and the Salvador Dali worth seeing. And there are often organ recitals.
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Comment number 4.
At 17th Jun 2009, Harapha wrote:This is pretty disingenuous, Pauline; no doubt this very blog played a role in boosting the Kelvingrove's vote.
The 'new' Kelvingrove deserves no awards, at least not for being a museum. It simply isn't. It's a proudly anti-intellectual warehouse of diversion, with a cafe instead of a brain. At weekends it doubles as a multi-storey pram-park, and seems designed to suit the educational level of 10 year olds. Glasgow's tribal affection for it depresses me intensely.
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Comment number 5.
At 17th Jun 2009, GlasgowGuide wrote:The Art Fund Prize organisers have, following further analysis of the data, determined that it is now "clear that an attempt was made to tamper with them [the vote results]". Further information can be found here:
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Comment number 6.
At 18th Jun 2009, thetwixta wrote:Not sure about the detail of this particular competition. However, can only agree with the above comments re the "new" Kelvingrove.
The same sort of thing will be unveiled at the "National Museums Scotland" in Edinburgh in a couple of years' time. Much worse, probably, but excellent shopping facilities will be provided.
As (especially) 4, above hints at, criticism of these institutions is often, and, unfortunately, all too easily deflected.
Perhaps, for example, the Edinburgh-based NMS could function very well at half its block grant. It could: provide an excellent public service; maintain its well-regarded research and scholarship activities.
Snouts would require to be removed from troughs, however.
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Comment number 7.
At 23rd Jun 2009, shoogledoogle wrote:I'm pleased to see fellow Glaswegians agreeing as to the awful, facile, and profoundly anti-intellectual state of Kelvingrove museum. I can see the value in having a children's museum, but we already have the 'Science Centre' on the South side.
Vote rigging from Culture and Sport Glasgow, should these allegations prove true, would not surprise me in the least. This particularly dirty little quango banned 'Variant' magazine - one of Glasgow's few recent and worthwhile cultural endeavours - from distribution at its venues for having the nerve to publish an unflattering article.
See
Having seen how they've affected the visiting exhibitions at the Burrell Collection, I fear for the the city's heritage. We are fortunate that they have not yet dared meddle with the permanent collection there, but I feel that we may see the Museum of Transport becoming yet another facile play-park when it reopens.
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