Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art

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The Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, or mima, is a contemporary art gallery based in the centre of Middlesbrough, in the North East of England. The gallery was formally launched on Sunday 27th January 2007, although it was originally planned to open in late Summer 2006^{[citation needed]}. It is one of three institutions run by the Middlesbrough Museums & Galleries Service, along with the Dorman Museum and Captain Cook Birthplace Museum.

[edit] History and Estates

The Institute's opening marks the completion of an accumulative journey for the art collection of post-industrial Middlesbrough. The early artistic heritage of a town of Middlesbrough's youth rested largely on the success of the Linthorpe Art Pottery (1879-1889), co-launched by Christopher Dresser out of the Sun Brickworks that built the suburb of that name. A School of Art had opened alongside the Mechanics' Institute in the Old Town's Durham Street in 1870, and by the 1950s that, too, had relocated to Linthorpe. The region's cultural profile was further amply boosted by the Cleveland International Drawing Biennale, up until that competition's extinction in the 1990s.

A spot for the town's first ground-up art gallery was granted by father of the Mayor, Sir Arthur Dorman as early as 1904. This was on Linthorpe Road opposite, and conceived in the same spate of events as, what was to become the Dorman Museum outside Albert Park. Funding shortfalls amid the onset of War, however, ensured that only a rest garden was eventually sited there. In the meantime, from 1927, the Carnegie Library and Grange Road Methodist Church housed the collection of paintings. Any permanent provision for the pieces did not materialise, however, until 1957, with the purchase by the Council of a former doctor's surgery on Linthorpe Road. It was not until 2003 that this building was vacated.

Cleveland Gallery

The other half of present-day mima, Cleveland Crafts Centre, based on Gilkes Street, catered for a collection of twentieth century British studio ceramics, and artist made jewellery dating from the 1970s onwards. The Cleveland Crafts Centre was closed as an exhibition venue in January 2003, and thereafter operated as the mima offices whilst the new gallery was being constructed. Its sister institution that lasted until 1999, the Cleveland Gallery, resided nearby in the erstwhile school buildings on Victoria Road. They are today home to the University of Teesside's graduate incubation studios in aid of new business start-ups.

Following the January 2003 closure of the two surviving galleries, construction of the present accommodation comprising the gallery, education suite, auditorium, cafe-bar, roof terrace and conservation studio commenced in 2004. The centre was designed by Erick van Egeraat Associated Architects and Buro Happold. Whilst construction was underway, mima programmed a series of offsite exhibitions and events including such artists as John Harrison and Paul Wood, Susan Pietzsch, Yuka Oyama, Graham Dolphin, Chicks on Speed, Martin Creed, Oliver Zwink and Mah Rana.