Directors of Tate and MCA join in launching the acquisition of artworks across their institutions with the assistance of Qantas; photo ArtsHub
When Sir Nicholas Serota left the directorship of the Tate galleries after 28 years, it was a woman who stepped into the UK’s top culture sector job for the first time in British history.
At 46, Dr Maria Balshaw CBE was the institution’s ninth director. Her role encompasses four Tate galleries, including the iconic Tate Britain and Tate Modern. She came with a reputation as something of a maverick, with a proven ability to transform even the toughest cultural landscapes. Her championing of gender equality and diversity are part of a vision for museums in the 21st century and beyond.
Simply, Balshaw doesn’t shy from debate or challenges, and she is keen to bust the current model wide open if it means a more equitable and attended museum. But are we on track with brokering those relationships and visions?
Ten months into the job, Balshaw was in Sydney yesterday to announce the most recent acquisitions under the Qantas, MCA, TATE International Joint Acquisition Program, taking the tally to 20 works by 13 artists and extending the global conversation around contemporary Australian art.
ArtsHub caught up with Balshaw, who said that, ‘While Tate is a powerful institution it cannot be the world leader in every field, but we want to stand alongside those who are, which this partnership with MCA and Qantas allows.’
Balshaw believes the most pressing issue currently facing the museum sector globally is getting the balance right.
‘I think by being brave and more experimental, we are the more likely to connect with new audiences. Personally, I am not satisfied with the demographics of the audiences that we currently see. They have got better, but they are not where I would like to see them.’
She believes that connecting to a wider audience without letting go of the Tate’s commitment to research and new thinking is not a contradictory position, and that museums globally can afford to reach out more to unexpected audiences.
She also believes that museums are places for all conversations – controversial, activist or not – and that through art we have a responsibility to reflect the dialogue of our times.
The gender agenda
Despite the endemic sexual harassment across the culture sector exposed by the #MeToo movement, Balshaw believes it is a really good time for women. Three out of the four directors of Tate’s galleries are women. In Australia, we are yet to reach gender parity in senior management across our major cultural organisations.
‘We are a majority female senior team,’ confirmed Balshaw. ‘In the UK all major companies have just had to publish their gender pay details and Tate doesn’t have a pay gap – we actually pay equitably and we are one of the few.
‘But there are still many more women in the middle ranks of our organisations than leaders across the globe. The thing we need to do is to make sure what comes through after us is properly equitable.’
She quoted Hilary Carty, Director of the Clore Leadership Programme in the UK, who said ‘our generation’s job is to send the elevator back down for the next generation to follow up’.
Balshaw has consistently championed women artists. Her time at Manchester saw commissioning of Lynn Hershman Leeson, Mary Kelly, Joana Vasconcelos, Marina Abramovic, Jane and Louise Wilson, Elizabeth Price, and for the reopening of the Whitworth, a ground-breaking mid-career show by Cornelia Parker.
Among the 13 Australian artists selected under the International Joint Acquisition Program, five are female artists contributing more than half of the artworks acquired.
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Maria Fernanda Cardoso, Corn Cob Coil, 1989 (2018 acquisition).
However, the ten months that Balshaw has been in the position have not always been smooth. In January this year, allegations of harassment and inappropriate behaviour surfaced against UK art dealer Anthony d’Offay, one of the gallery’s biggest donors. His gift of postwar works to the Tate, valued at £125 million (AUD $229 million), helped establish the “Artist Rooms” project.
The Tate has suspended further contact with d’Offay until these matters have been clarified. Mr d’Offay has denied the allegations made against him.
Only months later, in March, Balshaw again faced stormy seas, when artist and performer Liv Wynter withdrew her position as artist in residence at Tate Britain and Tate Modern’s education program, stating Balshaw had dismissed victims as not being ‘confident’ enough.
The future of youth and technology
When asked what the museum of the 21st century might look like, technology and youth were at the top of Balshaw’s list.
‘In the next three years we will be really focused across all four Tates on how we meet the enthusiasm and demands of a young audience. There will be a real focus on how the institution might need to change to serve that younger generation, who are digitally native, who are intellectually curious, who are activist, who want and need civic spaces and are curious about how artists think about the world,’ she said.
Balshaw added that the key to the future museum was investing in that under 30’s audience. She also believes that technology will continue to shape our museums in the future. ‘Digital is normal. It’s what is going to help us more than anything,’ she told ArtsHub.
She added: ‘I am interested in how we might think about running museums as if they were tech companies, not to become tech companies, but to learn the skills and techniques of getting work done in those business – they are globally distributed, very infrastructure light but their connectivity is strong – people are rarely in the same room when they are making decisions and working together. There is a lot we can learn from that space.’
Balshaw believes the future of successful museums lies not only in the way that we work but how we connect in new ways.
‘Given that we have audiences now upwards of 95% on mobile devices, and that the nature of those devices is changing so rapidly, everything we do and think and say about art needs to be made available through those platforms, because that grows a desire for the objects themselves,’ she said, adding that the Tate’s vision is on producing world-leading quality content.
It’s impossible to know what contemporary art will look like in 50 years, Balshaw noted. ‘Ten years ago I didn’t even have an iPhone. I don’t know what we will be looking at [art] it on in the future, but I suspect what we will see is work that is evermore connected. One of the things I have observed over the last decade is a shrinking of distance and a growing connectivity and that allows for more work that is multiply authored.’
Closing the gap on connectivity
This connectivity is evidenced in the International Joint Acquisitions Program, now half way through its five-year schedule. With a $2.75 million donation support by the Qantas Foundation, UK curators have the opportunity to visit the studios of Australian artists, and works are jointly acquired to then be exhibited across the two institutions.
Balshaw said: ‘[At Tate] we were aware of Australian art but didn’t know very much about it, and in the context of expanding knowledge and collections across the whole Asia Pacific area it became a really urgent issue to engage where Australian art has been over the past decade and where it is now.’
A third group of acquisitions was unveiled yesterday including artworks by Ian Burn, Maria Fernanda Cardoso, Juan Davila, Rosalie Gascoigne and Imants Tillers.
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Juan Davila, Yawar Fiesta (Fiesta Sangrienta), 1998 (2018 acquisition).
Artists previously collected under the program include Vernon Ah Kee, Richard Bell, Gordon Bennett, Helen Johnson, Peter Kennedy with John Hughes, Susan Norrie and Judy Watson. Several of the works acquired in this round were from the 1980s and 1990s.
‘The most significant bit is what the audiences do not see immediately – the curatorial exchange that underpins this relationship. So my staff have been able to make many visits, see artists, and be guided through in a very rapid but thorough way the ecology of artists practice here,’ Balshaw said.
Artworks acquired from the program are currently on show at both the MCA in Sydney and Tate Modern in London. Balshaw spoke at the MCA last night (Tuesday 3 April) and will speak at the National Gallery of Victoria tonight (Wednesday 4 April) on the Role of the 21st Century Museum.
