Bukhman donation gives New Curators £3m boost as access debate sharpens
A London training program aimed at widening who gets to shape exhibitions has secured a major financial backer. Russian-born philanthropists Anastasia Bukhman and Igor Bukhman have pledged £3 million to New Curators, a scheme for aspiring curators from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds that will now be able to train more than 30 people over the next three years.
The grant is designed to secure the program’s long-term future, according to Mark Godfrey, who co-founded New Curators in 2022 at the South London Gallery with Kerryn Greenberg and Rudi Minto de Wijs, both former Tate curators. Since its launch, the initiative has already supported 33 curators, who have gone on to organize exhibitions in London institutions featuring artists including Firelei Baez, Duane Linklater, Tanya Lukin Linklater and, later this year, Kang Seung Lee.
The Bukhmans, who left Russia in 2014 and are now based in London, have become increasingly visible patrons of the city’s art world. Last year, the Bukhman Foundation gave £1 million to the National Portrait Gallery, funding the acquisition of portraits of living sitters. Their latest gift extends that pattern of support from collections to the people who help define what museums and galleries show.
Anastasia Bukhman said access to careers in the arts and culture sector “is still far from equal,” adding that the imbalance has “real consequences for how art reflects the present and imagines the future.” Her comments land against a stark backdrop: recent research cited in the announcement found that only 5.2% of people working in UK museums, archives and libraries come from working-class backgrounds.
Godfrey said the donation has enabled the program to build “a platform for emerging curators” at a moment when the sector needs greater access and representation. He also said the course will continue evolving in response to the changing questions facing curatorial work, while the long-term aim is to build a network of alumni across museums, biennials, kunsthalles and smaller independent spaces.
For New Curators, the funding does more than stabilize a young initiative. It signals a broader shift in where philanthropic attention is being directed: not only toward artworks and institutions, but toward the professional pipeline that determines who gets to interpret them.
