Provinciality and the Art World: The Midland Group 1961- 1977

Abstract

This paper takes as its focus the Midland Group Gallery in order to first, make a case for the consideration of the geographies of art galleries. Second, highlight the importance of galleries in the context of cultural geographies of the sixties. Third, discuss the role of provinciality in the operation of art worlds. In so doing it explicates one set of geographies surrounding the gallery
– those of the local, regional and international networks that connected to produce art works and art space. It reveals how the interactions between places and practices outside of metropolitan and regional hierarchies provides a more nuanced insight into how art worlds operated during the
sixties, a period of growing internationalism of art, and how contested definitions of the provincial played an integral role in this. The paper charts the operations of the Midland Group Gallery and the spaces that it occupied to demonstrate how it was representative of a post-war
discourse of provincialism and a corresponding re-evaluation of regional cultural activity.