ICA picks hunting Tory as chairman

THE INSTITUTE of Contemporary Arts in London has made what may be its most cutting-edge gesture in years. It has appointed a gay, fox- hunting Tory as its new chairman. Ivan Massow, 31, best known as the first financial adviser to offer life insurance to homosexuals, will spearhead moves to take the radical arts venue into the new millennium.

The appointment was confirmed last week after months of negotiations between Mr Massow and Philip Dodd, the ICA's director, whose own political leanings are more left-wing.

Yet Mr Dodd welcomed the differences yesterday.

"The ICA is this place of massive contradictions. Its nearest neighbour [in the Mall] is the Queen but it is committed to radical kinds of thinking," he said.

The ICA was founded in 1947 with the aim of "uniting the arts on an international level". In the 1960s and 1970s it created scandals, and an exhibition which included tampons and images of prostitutes prompted questions in Parliament.

But as other organisations embraced contemporary art, the ICA looked marginalised. Financial difficulties compounded the problems with only a third of its income from public grants.

The appointment of an entrepreneur unknown to the arts world, albeit a celebrity in the gay community, may raise eyebrows among the ICA's critics.

But Ivan Massow's many friends among the new London establishment view it as a shrewd move. The playwright Jonathan Harvey said: "He's very sensible, a very good financial adviser, which I think any organisation would welcome. But he's also a real risk-taker."

Mr Massow has spent the past 10 years specialising in the financial needs of "unconventional" clients, from the "high-risk" self-employed to those such as gay men, whom conventional advisers have not wanted to help.

He lives in Mayfair, central London, and has a farm in Sussex where he is master of the hounds.

His friends range from Charles Moore, the Daily Telegraph editor, to Chris Smith, the Culture Secretary, and Charlie Parsons, one of the founders of Planet 24 television, who employed him to present financial advice in the early days of The Big Breakfast show.

"It's like the lunatics are taking over the asylum," Mr Parsons said of Mr Massow's appointment. "It's a bold, perhaps brave move, but it's potentially a brilliant appointment."