ICA's hip replacement

The ICA is going to concentrate on artists instead of films and dance

It's a new dawn, it's a new day, down at the ICA. What was once one of the world's hippest hang-outs - where the in-crowd would go to shake hands with the zeitgeist, where Pop Art was born, where Stravinsky, TS Elliot and Yoko Ono would hang out, where news was broken - is having a reincarnation after years of decline.

The ICA's recent past that has been most notable for in-fighting and financial turmoil. Tired, timid and woefully off the pace, it doesn't just need a hip replacement, but a reason for living.

The job of resuscitation, of blowing some life-saving oxygen of creativity into the place has fallen to Gregor Muir, the recently installed artistic director. Today he launches a new exhibition by the artist Pablo Bronstein, his first curatorial statement of intent.

Joining the establishment

What is interesting about the show is not the exhibition itself - there will be better and worse in the future - but Gregor Muir's approach. It is now clear how the new director will go about his business. His answer to the ICA's problems is simple - if you can't beat them, join them.

Gone are the aspirations to turn the ICA into a multi-cultural melting pot of ideas, which is down with the kids and up with the latest beats from the street. Forget all that, the ICA now wants to be part of the art world establishment, to sit with confidence at the top table with Tate, the Serpentine and the Frieze Art Fair.

There is no intention of trying to re-invent the place as a cross-arts platform doing a bit of this and a bit of that. It is to be a venue for A-list artists to have their say. If there is going to be film, theatre and dance, then it is going to come from an artist's work or mind - not as a separate programme that bears no relation to the art on show.

Exciting comparisons

This is not radical - many institutions across the country programme in a similar way - but it is likely to succeed. The venue, the location, the management, the public appetite for contemporary art, a market that is growing not shrinking, all point to a better future.

So the new ICA is no longer Dazed & Confused, more Vogue and Art Forum. It sees PS1 in New York and the Kunsthalle in Zurich as benchmarks to aim for. These are exciting institutions with an independent spirit (although PS1 is run by the very corporate MoMA).

But they are very "art world" and some might think the UK has plenty of that already - much of which is paid for by the British taxpayer. Then again, maybe that is what the ICA should be doing, and it is now time for some of the other bigger, more established institutions to take a look at themselves?