Towards Tate Modern

Public Policy, Private Vision

Caroline Donnellan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317008828
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Library & Information Science
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Towards Tate Modern provides a new interdisciplinary account of Tate's shifting position as a national arts institution. The book examines how earlier government directives impacted on Tate, which saw the organisation refocusing its aims and resulted in it pioneering new models for working across the public and private sectors.

The decade prior to the opening of Tate Modern witnessed a changing political, economic, cultural and social landscape. As London was rebuilding its own vision, Tate re-configured its role as a public museum and gallery by engaging with the market. Tate re-imagined what a public museum and gallery can do, what it can look like and where it can be and, in doing so, responded to a new kind of audience with a larger appetite than before. Re-cast as a cultural and social forum, Tate Modern turned itself into a popular public event. This research considers how Tate Modern generated a set of new debates and what this might mean for the future role of the public museum and gallery.

Towards Tate Modern will be of particular interest to academics and students, art practitioners and policy makers working in the fields of museum studies, policy studies, cultural studies, urban studies, and political and economic history, as well as those involved in archival research. It will also engage those wishing to widen their understanding of how an institution such as Tate Modern was created.

Chapter 1
Past, present and future

Government and city

The landslide Conservative electoral win in May 1979 under Margaret Thatcher marked the end of consensus politics. The direction the party was moving in began when Sir Keith Joseph delivered his keynote speech ‘Monetarism is not enough’ in April 1976 which set out the principles of a more centre-right party ideology.¹ The same month, James Callaghan replaced Harold Wilson as the Labour Prime Minister. Under Callaghan, an application was made to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a loan of £2.3 billion (approximately US$3.9 billion), the largest amount ever requested of it. The stringent conditions attached to the loan put restrictions on public spending. Additionally, wage freezing, rising inflation and unemployment led to a calamitous breakdown in relations between the Labour Government and the unions. The situation escalated during the ‘Winter of Discontent’ in 1978 and marked the demise of the Labour government. The IMF reset the economic agenda. The climate was ready to accept a new brand of British conservatism which shared the values of neo-liberalism in promoting privatisation, the reduction of the public sector, deregulation, entrepreneurial freedoms and flexible markets. The area where the Conservative government chose, however, to take an interventionist approach was in urban planning. This chapter examines the impact this had on shaping the cultural landscape and the implications it had for the Tate.

During the first Thatcher government, the Office of Arts and Libraries remained essentially the same body in terms of executive power, but the arts budget was cut. Newly appointed Minister of State for the Arts Norman St John-Stevas objected to the ferocity of the cuts but was lampooned by Thatcher as a Tory Wet. St John-Stevas was removed from office, to be replaced by Paul Channon, who served as the new minister of State for the Arts from 1981–83. Channon created the Museums and Galleries Council, which secured budget increases. Following the re-election of the Conservative Party in 1983, Channon was moved to the role of the minister of State for Trade at the Department of Trade and Industry. Grey Ruthven, 2nd Earl of Gowrie, was appointed the new minister of State for the Arts; less sympathetic than his predecessor, he implemented sharp funding cuts. Public museums and galleries were forced to reconsider their economic basis, with some institutions introducing voluntary admission charges. As the Conservative administration shifted its responsibility and funding away from state activities, it continued to focus on urban planning.

Action for Cities: Building on Initiative (1987) proposed that ‘the decline of traditional industries and the rise in car ownership have all caused a major shift in population and jobs away from our older cities’.² The Department of the Environment and the Department of Employment publication did not discuss how the government, in withdrawing public support, contributed to the decline in the workforce and to the disintegration of urban centres. The report instead outlined how a government framework had been implemented to aid inner-city deprivation by providing help for rebuilding, as well as increasing skills and enterprise. It advocated that change was necessary for British cities to reconfigure their industrial basis to new types of business. Urban Enterprise Zones were created offering tax concessions and infrastructure incentives for private investors. The incentives were offered through the Urban Development Grants, with the aim to promote partnership initiatives. The grants provided the core funding for the Urban Development Corporations (UDCs) which were to help bring vacant, derelict and underused land and buildings back to effective use. The Urban Development Grant and the Urban Regeneration Grant were released in two stages, in 1982 and 1986. These funding mechanisms were replaced by the City Grant in 1988, which was intended to streamline the process for private sector inner-city developments.

Merseyside Development Corporation – the Tate Gallery Liverpool

The Merseyside Development Corporation (MDC) was one of the first UDCs to be created, along with the London Docklands, because Liverpool had suffered from among the highest unemployment rates in Britain. The MDC, created in March 1981, was given greater impetus when the Toxteth riots erupted in July of that year. Reported as race riots, they were mainly a response to urban decline which had been fuelled by the government’s economic reforms, including indirect taxation and local council charges. The MDC’s aim was to create a revitalisation strategy for Liverpool’s waterfront through public funding and private investment to create an economically sustainable environment. Activities undertaken by the MDC included the redevelopment of the Albert Dock and the implementation of the Liverpool International Garden Festival on a site adjacent to the River Mersey. The horticultural event was the result of the largest reclamation scheme undertaken in the country at that time. The work involved the clearance of a former household tip and petroleum tanks.³ The aim was to bring public and private interests together to provide residential developments and public green space.

The MDC’s flagship project was the Albert Dock. The objective was to provide a cultural, commercial and residential district offering a range of waterfront retail and entertainment facilities and activities within the Merseyside Docks. Originally the Merseyside Docks had operated within a seven-acre basin. The warehouse and dock complex consisted of five stacks of buildings. Jesse Hartley was the surveyor who also designed the Albert Dock. Despite the level of planning, within a few decades of the official opening by Prince Albert in 1846, the entrances became unable to accommodate the new large steamships.⁴ A further issue was that the scale of the warehouses made rebuilding impractical. The decline accelerated with the onset of World War I, which resulted in fewer ships coming into dock and, from 1920, with activity almost at a standstill. The Albert Dock was given Grade I listed building status in 1952 and made a conservation area in 1976. The buildings were reappointed for goods storage, and finally closed in 1972; thereafter new developments were proposed and declined.

The turning point began when the MDC in partnership with the Arrowcroft Group earmarked the Albert Dock for renewal. The following year ‘Business in the Community’ was established in 1982 by the government as a voluntary, non-profit organisation to persuade businesses to contribute to the work of UDCs and other development schemes. Landowners, industry and local authorities were targeted for investment. The Conservative Party Manifesto (1983) stated: ‘Our approach to reviving the rundown areas of our great cities is to use limited public money to stimulate much larger investment by private enterprise.’⁵ Public money was distributed through the Conservative Small Business schemes and Enterprise Zones to invest in the new developments. Additional finance was invested in the Business Sponsorship Incentive Schemes. The partnership schemes created in 1984 were available to new ventures setting up under the UDCs. With all the financial incentives offered by the government, it recognised that it needed a core ingredient to attract new enterprises. Culture became the catalyst to attract these activities, which resulted in the Tate and the Merseyside Maritime Museum being invited to create new exhibition sites.

Prior to the creation of the MDC, the Merseyside Maritime Museum had opened for a trial season at the Albert Dock in 1980. As part of the MDC’s bigger vision, it was reallocated to Block D with the Transatlantic Slavery Museum, now the International Slavery Museum appointed to the third floor of the same building. The museum’s focus was informed by the city’s seafaring heritage, whose wealth had been built on sugar, tobacco, cotton and the slave trade. The Slavery Abolition Act (1833) began the closure of the slavery colonies throughout the British Empire, including the West Indies, where sugar cane had been exported from. While sugar ceased to be imported from the colonies, it continued to arrive from other suppliers into Liverpool. Among the city’s sugar refineries, Henry Tate was made a partner at John Wright and Company in 1859. The following year the Anglo-French Cobden-Chevalier Treaty saw a reduction in tariffs and a free-market economy flourish. Tate benefitted from the returns and apportioned some of his wealth to philanthropy, which included donations to the Hahnemann Hospital and to University College London. The sugar businessman’s swan-song was his patronage of the National Gallery of British Art (now Tate Britain) in 1897. As Tate had developed his business career in Liverpool, a new exhibition site in the city, almost a century later, was considered an appropriate gesture. The Tate was awarded the north-west corner of a warehouse that had previously imported sugar and other commodities.

The Tate Gallery Liverpool development within the Albert Dock was designed by James Stirling, Michael Wilford and Associates, who were directly appointed largely due to the Tate’s Director Alan Bowness’s support for them. Stirling and Wilford had designed the Clore Gallery extension for the Tate Gallery, which opened in 1987. The Liverpool venture was more complex. While the Albert Dock remained largely intact, the section appointed for the Tate had fallen into disrepair. A further issue was that the building was Grade I listed which resulted in the brick and stone exterior and colonnade of Doric columns being retained (see Figure 1.1). The building programme involved transforming the seven-storey industrial warehouse into four floors of public galleries on Liverpool’s waterfront. When the Tate Gallery Liverpool opened in 1988 it provided 3,700 sq. m. of exhibition space, making it the largest in Britain outside London, which had been realised by partnership funding. The MDC provided 50% of the total £9.5 million cost.⁶ The government donated a further £0.5 million, with an additional £2 million secured from the private sector. The remaining finance was raised from alternative funding streams. The Tate Gallery Liverpool became the organisation’s first foray into professional partnership fundraising, which resulted in it acquiring a new level of expertise and awarded it a greater national profile.

Figure 1.1 Tate Liverpool, formerly The Tate Gallery Liverpool, side elevation.

Overseeing the initial stages of the MDC development was the Secretary of State for the Environment Michael Heseltine, who was moved in 1983 to the post of Secretary of State for Defence. The appointment ended with his resignation in 1986, in a bitter and public cabinet dispute over a bail-out for the British helicopter company Westland. Heseltine backed a European rescue bid and Thatcher an American one, which damaged the prime minister’s reputation. Heseltine later announced his candidacy for the Conservative Party leadership during Thatcher’s third consecutive term as prime minister. John Major won the leadership battle in 1990 and returned Heseltine to the role of Secretary of State for the Environment, due to his earlier success with the UDCs. The Conservatives were re-elected into government office for their fourth term in 1992. The Office of Arts and Libraries was replaced by the Department of National Heritage (DNH) which oversaw the Museums and Galleries Act (1992). The statute repealed the National Gallery and Tate Gallery Act (1954). The Act decreed that the Tate Gallery was to be governed by a board of trustees headed by a director, appointed by them with the approval of the prime minister. According the rights of corporate status, which invested all property, rights and liabilities with the director to be accountable to the board(s) of trustees, provided the Tate greater autonomy. Accountability for how museums and galleries managed their assets underscored the basis of the act.

The National Lottery

The Museums and Galleries Act shifted responsibility away from the government, as it was concerned about undertaking cultural initiatives. Earlier Edward Heath’s Conservative administration had overseen The British Library Act (1972), which made the provision to create a separate institution from the British Museum. Designed by Colin St John Wilson and Partners for the Property Services Agency, the British Library became a lengthy and costly undertaking. The project spanned 1978 to 1997 and amounted to almost £500 million. The British Library turned into the kind of financial debacle that the Conservative government wished to never repeat. Measures were undertaken to remove direct state responsibility for these projects. This began the lead up to eventually creating a new mechanism for public funding whereby the reliance on the Treasury in funding these projects was removed. The DNH oversaw the National Lottery Act (1993), which provided the legislation for a new system of public funding. The National Lottery Commission appointed an independent operator to manage the project by overseeing the selling of lottery tickets, awarding prize money and allocating a portion of the receipts to government distribution bodies. One of the bodies, the Millennium Commission, was responsible for administering the major award for Capital Projects, which was to create ‘landmarks for the 21st century’.⁷

The Millennium Commission provided up to £50 million and 50% of the required funding. With the aim to lever in the remaining finance from the private sector, the Millennium Commission forced public organisations to adopt a more commercial-style approach. This model, created by the Conservative government, continued under New Labour from 1997. The DNH was replaced by the Department of Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS), which was intended to propose a clearer mandate than its predecessor and a more powerful government body. Taking on the DNH’s core responsibilities as well as the Golden Jubilee and Millennium projects, it retained many of the executive functions carried out by quangos, including the National Lottery Commission. The demanded greater accountability and economic impact and in doing so promoted an enterprise culture. Publicly funded bodies were required to provide a delivery of outputs. Core sectors that had been previously considered as ‘marginal to economic life and dependent on public subsidy’ were ...