Roland Rudd, the chair of Tate, is in a bullish mood when we meet at his offices in the Adelphi Building, which sits on the Thames between the art institution\u2019s two London sites. \u201cThings have never been better,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a rebuff to any suggestion that the organisation is in flux \u2013 and, as if he were expecting the question to arise, Rudd produces a piece of paper from his suit pocket with notes to prove his point. The recent wins, he says, are so numerous that he has written them down so as not to forget any.<\/p>\n
At Tate Britain, Turner and Constable<\/a> drew in 270,000 people, which Rudd insists \u201cis phenomenal\u201d; Lee Miller<\/a> was \u201cthe most popular photography show anywhere in the UK\u201d; and \u201cTracey\u201d (Tracey Emin, to you and me) has brought in 125,000 paying visitors, \u201ca remarkable number<\/a>\u201d, over at Tate Modern.<\/p>\n He\u2019s not finished. \u201c[Visitor numbers] for the end of March were at 6.2 million, about 200,000 up on the previous year.\u201d And don\u2019t forget the membership, which 155,000 people have signed up for (\u201cthe biggest membership of any cultural institution \u2026 anywhere\u201d).<\/p>\n This picture, as he paints it, is undoubtedly sunny. But, like one of Turner\u2019s maritime scenes, there is a hint of cloud hovering over the flagship. We\u2019re talking less than two weeks after Maria Balshaw stepped down as director of Tate<\/a>, a position she had held for nine years. The obvious question after Rudd\u2019s laundry list of achievements is, if things are so good, then why is the woman in charge leaving? Rudd says Balshaw is on record saying 10 years would be her limit; by that measure, she isn\u2019t far off. But her successor faces an onerous task.<\/p>\n Maria Balshaw in 2019. Photograph: Jeff Spicer\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Part of the reason for the Rudd rundown is because Tate needs some positivity. Visitor numbers have indeed recovered after falling from their peak in 2019, but finances were hit hard during the pandemic. Those financial headwinds have led to multiple rounds of redundancies, restructures and several \u201cculture war\u201d battles that, according to one senior staffer, have left staff morale \u201con the floor\u201d.<\/p>\n Rudd, then, needs to spin: he\u2019s on the hunt for a new director and wants to sell the Tate as somewhere on the up, rather than the unmanageable, unwieldy \u201cbeast\u201d in the midst of an \u201cexistential crisis<\/a>\u201d as some characterise it.<\/p>\n As far as Balshaw is concerned, there is no mystery behind her departure. \u201cYou go when things are good,\u201d she says. \u201cYou don\u2019t go when they\u2019re bad, and there were some hard years.\u201d Post Tate, she\u2019s been enjoying walking her dog, tending her garden in Kent and making the occasional appearance at openings, such as the new V&A East. Close to a decade is a \u201chealthy\u201d tenure, she says.<\/p>\n Balshaw arrived from the Whitworth in 2017<\/a>. In Manchester, she had established herself as a driven, instinctive leader<\/a> who had become a de facto \u201ccultural queen\u201d of Manchester as it underwent an economic transformation in the 2000s. She was praised as a leader with \u201ccharm, guts and skill<\/a>\u201d and was utterly unlike anyone who had ever run Tate.<\/p>\n The first woman to lead the organisation, she went to state school, grew up in the Midlands and had never worked for Tate. In contrast, Frances Morris, the director of Tate Modern when Balshaw arrived, had been with the organisation since 1987; Nicholas Serota, the man she was taking over from, had been in post for 28 years<\/a>. Alex Farquharson, the Tate Britain boss, hadn\u2019t worked at Tate, but he had known Serota and his wife, Teresa Gleadowe, who taught him at the Royal College of Art in London.<\/p>\n In Tate terms, Balshaw was an outsider. She was viewed as neither an art historian nor a curator, which did not sit well with some. \u201cShe was a professional leader,\u201d said one former colleague.<\/p>\n Balshaw balks at that charge. \u201cThose people who said she\u2019s not a curator, they meant, \u2018Oh, she hasn\u2019t gone to the Courtauld\u2019 and \u2018I didn\u2019t know her from some dinner party\u2019. And that\u2019s just not true. I established myself quickly with curators around my academic knowledge and credentials.\u201d<\/p>\n Ma\u0301ret A\u0301nne Sara\u2019s site-specific work in the Turbine Hall. Photograph: David Levene\/The Guardian<\/p>\n The institution Balshaw inherited from Serota was on a seemingly endless upward trajectory. He\u2019d willed Tate Modern into existence. Money and sponsorship flowed, including a record-breaking deal with Hyundai<\/a>, the South Korean car manufacturer, to support 11 years of Turbine Hall commissions. Visitor numbers only headed in one direction.<\/p>\n While there was undoubted momentum, the success of Serota\u2019s tenure made Balshaw\u2019s job all the more challenging. As one former Tate curator put it: \u201cIt\u2019s a bit like a new manager coming into Manchester United after Sir Alex Ferguson. Maria was in a very difficult position.\u201d<\/p>\n Early successes included Soul of A Nation, which was in train before she arrived, and Steve McQueen\u2019s Year 3<\/a> at Tate Britain. In 2019, a record-breaking number of people visited Tate\u2019s four venues (including Tate St Ives and Tate Liverpool). Then, the pandemic hit.<\/p>\n Instead of the 8 million predicted visitors in 2020, there were only 1 million. The pandemic left a \u00a356 million hole in Tate\u2019s finances and led to several rounds of job cuts<\/a>. Industrial action followed. At one strike, staff said they were having to resort to food banks and that they just wanted their staff canteen reinstated, which it has been.<\/p>\n The Turner prize, once a jewel in Tate\u2019s crown, has struggled to remain relevant; the Blavatnik Building, which was Serota\u2019s legacy project, is mostly empty. Government funding increases remained below inflation throughout Balshaw\u2019s tenure, and she had to deal with nine culture secretaries in as many years \u2013 many of whom seemed to hate the arts<\/a>. Meanwhile, in the Balshaw era, identity politics and historic questions about race at the organisation became unavoidable, leading to a series of mini crises.<\/p>\n Steve McQueen\u2019s Year 3 at Tate Britain. Photograph: Neil Hall\/EPA<\/p>\n There was the \u201cracist\u201d Rex Whistler mural<\/a> in the Tate Britain restaurant, and Tate paid out a six-figure settlement<\/a> to artists who had sued the organisation for discrimination. The most serious incident internally was the handling of the Requiem mural, painted by Chris Ofili at Tate Britain, to commemorate Khadija Saye<\/a> and the other victims of the Grenfell Tower fire.<\/p>\n Staff felt their opinions on the work, which Ofili admitted was supposed to elicit a \u201cgut punch\u201d reaction, were ignored. Several burst into tears when they saw it for the first time. It was subsequently altered \u2013 Tate insiders say this was after staff revolted, Balshaw says it was because of feedback from Grenfell groups. Tate says the claims the mural was changed because of the workforce\u2019s concerns are \u201ccompletely untrue\u201d.<\/p>\n Balshaw held a meeting about the mural where \u201cpeople shouted at me, they cried, and they told me what we got wrong and how we could do better\u201d. Was it a mistake looking back? \u201cAs I said to the group, most of my emotional energy had gone on thinking about Grenfell United and the next-of-kin groups, and on balance, I think that\u2019s still right.\u201d Balshaw admits she hadn\u2019t anticipated how \u201ctender\u201d the staff were still feeling \u201cbecause of things like the Whistler mural\u201d.<\/p>\n Rudd is more frank in admitting that mistakes have been made, but he highlights the Hogarth exhibition from 2021, which caused a stir with its labelling that included non-curatorial staff \u2013 such as the artist Lubaina Himid \u2013 giving their speculative view on the imagery. Critics described it as \u201cwokeish drivel<\/a>\u201d. Rudd tells me it was \u201ctoo preachy and too in your face; people didn\u2019t react well to that\u201d.<\/p>\n The fact that staff and the board appear to be so diametrically opposed highlights a central contradiction at Tate: its workforce skews young and progressive while its board and funders lean socially conservative. Any leader has to operate somewhere in that sticky middle.<\/p>\n Tracey Emin poses with her artwork My Bed during a photocall for Tracey Emin: A Second Life at Tate Modern. Photograph: Tolga Akmen\/EPA<\/p>\n There\u2019s also the dispute<\/a> with the National Gallery over its decision to change its collection policy so that it can compete with Tate Modern for 20th-century art. \u201cThey have chosen a path, which obviously is competitive with us,\u201d says Rudd. \u201cThere\u2019s no point denying that, and would we prefer they didn\u2019t? Of course.\u201d Publicly, Balshaw welcomed the move<\/a>.<\/p>\n Many people I spoke to said Tate\u2019s woes should not be laid at Balshaw\u2019s door. \u201cMaria has stepped away but we still have a board that doesn\u2019t really know how to answer some of the challenges we face,\u201d said one former senior Tate figure. Many feel the balance of the board is wrong, that it\u2019s too commercially minded (although several people praise Jayne-Anne Gadhia<\/a> for getting control of the finances).<\/p>\n Frances Morris recalled one board meeting when curatorial staff were asked to explain \u201cwhat art is\u201d by a trustee. \u201cI thought, how can we have intelligent conversations about mission and vision and decolonising the collection or exploding the canon if they don\u2019t even know what art is?\u201d<\/p>\n The other charge aimed at the Balshaw era is a lack of a clear vision. When the director left, Tate said she had brought \u201cgreater gender balance and geographical breadth to new acquisitions\u201d, which sounded remarkably similar to what Tate was saying in 2022 when Morris\u2019s departure was announced.<\/p>\n