{"id":747693,"date":"2026-06-19T17:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T17:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/747693\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T17:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T17:18:09","slug":"reports-of-the-blockbuster-exhibitions-death-are-premature-as-tates-kahlo-show-breaks-ticket-record-exhibitions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/747693\/","title":{"rendered":"Reports of the blockbuster exhibition\u2019s death are premature as Tate\u2019s Kahlo show breaks ticket record | Exhibitions"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Tate Modern<\/a> announced a major exhibition devoted to Frida Kahlo, few doubted it would be popular. The Mexican artist has become one of the most recognisable cultural figures in the world, with her image adorning everything from tote bags to T-shirts.<\/p>\n

But even Tate was unprepared for the scale of demand. The gallery has said more than 41,000 tickets have already been sold for Frida: The Making of an Icon<\/a>, which opens on 25 June, making it the highest pre-selling exhibition in Tate\u2019s history, surpassing the previous record of 32,000 advance sales for David Hockney in 2017.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re pretty blown away by it,\u201d Catherine Wood, Tate Modern\u2019s interim director, told the Guardian.<\/p>\n

The enthusiasm surrounding Kahlo is not an isolated phenomenon. With the British Museum preparing for the arrival of the Bayeux tapestry, and other galleries lining up exhibitions devoted to artists including Monet<\/a>, Hockney<\/a>, Renoir<\/a> and Nan Goldin<\/a>, Britain\u2019s museums appear to be witnessing a resurgence of the blockbuster exhibition \u2013 despite fears that the pandemic had fundamentally altered audience habits.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think predictions about the decline of the blockbuster have been proved wrong,\u201d Wood said. \u201cWe think of them as trust builders, so that audiences will also come into our free displays and discover amazing artists they might not know. We always try to think about how we can curate these shows in ways that speak to the next generation and contemporary issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

A display of Kahlo merch at a previous staging of the exhibition. Photograph: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston<\/p>\n

The Bayeux tapestry, which goes on display in London from 10 September, is expected to rank among the most in-demand exhibitions in the British Museum\u2019s history, with the museum already describing it as its \u201cexhibition of the century\u201d.<\/p>\n

Demand for pre-sale tickets was so high this week that members faced hours-long queues<\/a> and the museum\u2019s website crashed, prompting comparisons on social media to the scramble for Glastonbury tickets.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the British Museum said it had been \u201cthe most popular first day of sales for any exhibition mounted by the museum\u201d.<\/p>\n

At the National Gallery, a recent Van Gogh exhibition became the institution\u2019s most popular ticketed exhibition ever<\/a>. The show attracted 334,589 visits and remained open through the night on its final weekend to accommodate demand.<\/p>\n

Museums increasingly believe that the appeal of major exhibitions extends beyond the artists themselves. In an age of streaming, social media and digital reproduction, institutions say visitors are placing enormous value on seeing original works in person.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can find images of Frida online or in books, but people want to be in the room with the original painting that this person made,\u201d Wood said. \u201cHumans like rituals and being part of something collective, and today there are very few points of not just shared belief but shared cultural experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrida Kahlo represents so many things to so many different people. Her feminism, her gender-fluid identity, her love lives with men and women, her boldness in exposing her disability and the way she styled herself. Her story resonates with so many different people\u2019s life experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wood said Kahlo\u2019s continued popularity also reflected a broader search for figures who appear authentic in an era of political and cultural uncertainty.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are looking for forms of continuity and stability, for figures who are bold in owning their own life experience. Although her life had lots of trauma and disappointments, she showed a way to live and survive and thrive.\u201d<\/p>\n

The National Gallery<\/a> echoed that view, saying it would be encouraging to think that the popularity of major exhibitions reflected a deeper public hunger for communal cultural experiences.<\/p>\n

Museums remain under pressure from rising costs and constrained public funding, making successful exhibitions increasingly important sources of income and membership growth. \u201cWe\u2019re all facing widely reported financial challenges, therefore exhibitions of all types, along with many other initiatives, are important to us all,\u201d a National Gallery spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely,\u201d said Wood when asked whether major exhibitions were important to Tate\u2019s finances. \u201cHalf of our audience are members, and their loyalty is so important to the economy of Tate.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is even a bit of \u201chealthy competition\u201d among galleries competing for audiences for blockbuster exhibitions. \u201cThe more great shows we all do, the more it enlarges the audience for art,\u201d Wood said.<\/p>\n

Tate\u2019s other crowd-pullers include its current Tracey Emin exhibition, A Second Life<\/a>, which has attracted 234,000 visitors since it opened in February and still has more than two months to run. \u201cTracey Emin has way exceeded what we predicted in terms of visitor numbers. Like Frida, people have been really moved by the raw honesty of her work,\u201d Wood said.<\/p>\n

Tate also has high hopes for an exhibition on the art and fashion of the 90s, curated by the former Vogue editor Edward Enninful, which it expects will appeal to a broad range of audiences increasingly nostalgic for our last \u201coffline\u201d era when it opens in October.<\/p>\n

Yet the resurgence of the blockbuster is taking place against a more complicated backdrop. Overall visitor numbers across Britain\u2019s attractions remain below pre-pandemic levels, suggesting that while audiences may not have fully returned, they are increasingly willing to turn out for major cultural events.<\/p>\n

Bernard Donoghue, the director of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, said visitor numbers to its members were still 7% below 2019 levels. \u201cThe post-pandemic recovery has still not been fully achieved,\u201d he said. \u201cBut there is room for optimism. In the years immediately after lockdown, there was understandable caution about returning to crowded spaces. Now, the fear of missing out is back with a vengeance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen the extraordinary success of Van Gogh at the National Gallery, Marie Antoinette at the V&A and Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Style at the King\u2019s Gallery, which sold out and has now been extended due to unprecedented demand. It shows that the right story, told well and capturing the public imagination, can electrify and excite audiences.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Tate Modern announced a major exhibition devoted to Frida Kahlo, few doubted it would be popular. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":747694,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[76,354,355,49,48,356,75],"class_list":["post-747693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=747693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/747694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=747693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=747693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=747693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}