New North celebrates the work of artists living in the north of the British Isles, mostly aged in their thirties and forties. The exhibition can be seen as a part of the public debate about regionalism – the more equal distribution of power and opportunities away from the metropolis to the regions.
In the last ten years, in Western Europe and North America, this political regionalism has been echoed in the world of the arts. There has been a growing interest in art produced away from market and media centres for art like New York, Dusseldorf, London or Paris.
In England, some central government arts funding and some parts of the national collections – like Tate Liverpool – have been moved away from London. The artistic resources of the North of England are now closer to those that have existed in Scotland and Northern Ireland for some years.