Whitechapel Gallery Names Economist-in-Residence as Funding Pressures Mount
Whitechapel Gallery in London has appointed economist Mariana Mazzucato (b. 1968) as its first economist-in-residence, a three-year post designed to probe a question that is becoming harder for museums to avoid: how should culture be valued, and who gets to define that value? The public gallery says the role will help it rethink not only revenue, but the wider social purpose of an institution under financial strain.
The appointment arrives as Whitechapel faces a widening deficit. According to documents filed with the U.K. Charity Commission and first reported by the Financial Times, the gallery’s shortfall reached £880,458 ($1.2 million), up 325 percent from £207,377 ($280,000) the year before. Exhibition income fell as the gallery continued to back lesser-known and underrepresented artists, while support from trusts and foundations weakened amid fiercer competition for grants. Public funding has also slipped, with Arts Council support dropping from £6.1 million ($8.2 million) for 2018–22 to £5.8 million ($7.8 million) for 2022–26.
Mazzucato, a professor at University College London and founding director of the Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose, has built her career around public goods, innovation, and the economics of value. At Whitechapel, she will use the residency to argue that culture should be treated as a strategic investment rather than a discretionary expense. In her view, the arts can strengthen social cohesion and generate public value for communities as well as individuals.
Gilane Tawadros, Whitechapel’s director, said the appointment offers a “testing ground” for new thinking about the economics of arts and culture. She framed the move as part of a broader effort to understand how a public art institution can better communicate its impact at a moment when museums, galleries, theaters, and performance spaces across the U.K. are confronting what she called the most severe financial and existential threat in generations.
Mazzucato will make her first appearance in the role on Thursday at Whitechapel’s Art Futures series, where she will discuss ideas from her forthcoming book, “The Common Good Economy,” before joining artist Alvaro Barrington and Darren Isom of the Bridgespan Group for a conversation about the future of public arts institutions. The residency suggests that, for Whitechapel, the debate over survival is now inseparable from the debate over value.
