Gompertz to leave the BBC for the Barbican Centre

BBC arts editor since 2009, WILL GOMPERTZ is to join London’s Barbican arts centre in the newly designed role of Director of Arts and Learning. The role will bring together the Barbican’s arts and creative learning departments for the first time.

Gompertz joins just before the organisation’s 40th anniversary next year and before it embarks on a major renewal of the building, which was announced at when the City of London abandoned plans for a 2000-seat Centre for Music on the site currently occupied by the Museum of London.

A director of the Tate Galleries for seven years before he joined the BBC, he will lead the Barbican in renewing its vision and purpose as a civic space for the widest inclusive community.  He will take up the position at the beginning of June.