Plymouth now only UK place you can see world class art exhibition outside of London

A major new international art exhibition at The Box in Plymouth which has been described as a significant coup for the city attracted more than 3,000 people during its opening weekend.

Plymouth is the only location outside London in the UK where ‘The Time is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure’ is being shown. Organised by the National Portrait Gallery the exhibition travels to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the USA after it closes at The Box at the end of September.

Costing £16 for a ticket to see it at the National Portrait Gallery in London, in Plymouth it is free. The show is a study of the black figure and its representation in contemporary art and features 46 works of sculpture, paintings and drawings by 22 artists from the UK and USA made between 2000 and 2023.

Read more:

It starts in the gallery in St Luke’s Church and spreads across several exhibition spaces on the ground and first floors of the main building.

Speaking to Plymouth City Council cabinet meeting, Cllr Jemima Laing (Lab, Stoke ), cabinet member for culture, said the show is “an international blockbuster” and includes work from some of the most important artists today including Turner prize winner Chris Ofili, and portraitist Amy Sherald.

“It’s incredibly exciting. I was privileged to be at the opening, this is world class art on our doorstep for free,” she said.

Council leader Cllr Tudor Evans (Lab, Ham) said the team at The Box were working their contacts’ book “really hard and brilliantly”.

“We are very pleased to have those individuals working for us,” he said.

The £42 million museum and art gallery, which opened in 2020, was a redevelopment project led by Plymouth City Council in partnership with the University of Plymouth and the National Museum of the Royal Navy and supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Arts Council England.

Cabinet members were told that 800,000 people had visited The Box since it opened, with 60 per cent of those from Plymouth. It has just received a 2024 Trip Advisor Travellers Choice Award which puts it in the top 10 per cent of attractions worldwide.