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.
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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.
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About the Author
Caroline Donnellan is a Lecturer in History of Art & Architectural History at Boston University Study Abroad London, UK

motw/Towards Tate Modern_ Public Pol - Caroline Donnellan.epub

motw/Towards Tate Modern_ Public Pol - Caroline Donnellan.pdf

Ashgate Publishing Limited

Taylor & Francis (CAM)

Taylor & Francis Ltd

Gower Publishing Ltd

Taylor and Francis

CRC Press

United Kingdom and Ireland, United Kingdom

London ; New York, 2018

1st ed, Florence, 2016

1st, London, 2016

London, 2017

sources:
urn:isbn:9781472480941

Memory of the World Librarian: Slowrotation

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of figures -- Introduction -- Thatcher's museum -- Envisioning change -- Cultural policy: museums and galleries -- Competing claims -- 1 Past, present and future - government and city -- Merseyside Development Corporation - the Tate Gallery Liverpool -- The National Lottery -- Rebranding politics - rebranding the nation -- London world city -- Building Bankside -- 2 Defining the vision -- The Communications Department -- The Tate Gallery St Ives -- Defining the vision -- Operation Moby Dick -- Site proposals -- Tate Canary Wharf - Tate Vauxhall -- Tate South Bank - Tate Greenwich -- Tate Bankside -- Buying Bankside -- Negotiation and consultation -- Creating the brief - completing the vision -- 3 Funding and branding -- The Development Office -- Speculating for the future -- Economic and cultural impact -- The Millennium Commission -- Regenerating Bankside -- Southwark station -- Branding Tate -- The Change Management Programme -- 4 Competition and building -- Researching the process -- Regulating - deregulating architecture -- The competition jury -- The architecture competition -- Building Tate Modern -- Construction costs -- The Millennium Bridge -- 5 Opening Tate Modern -- Experiencing Tate Modern -- London's spatial turn -- Assessing the impact -- Industrial adaptive reuse -- The Switch House and the Tanks (2016) -- Bibliography -- Index

Tate Modern is not modern - it was a century in the making. This interdisciplinary book is a unique account of a how Tate Modern transformed itself into the highly successful museum it is today. Tate Modern had to entice an audience which had earlier railed against modern art but by creating its own vision of art, its own vision of a public, and its own vision of London, it offered new thinking what a public institution can do. The author examines why the public became willing to visit the new art at Tate Modern and how the Tate pushed the cultural boundaries of national museums and galleries to the south bank of London. She also critiques how the Tate facilitated a new economic paradigm for the funding of a public arts organisation. This book should be read by students and researchers working in the disciplines of museum studies, as well as art history, architectural history, cultural studies, history, organisational studies, visual studies and interdisciplinary research. As an account of cultural policy relating specifically to museums and galleries, it will be of great interest to those working in museums and arts organisations

Towards Tate Modern examines how Tate Modern set about establishing its own vision of art and, in doing so, offered new thinking on what a public institution could do and how one might be funded. The book examines this process, critically evaluating both the reasons behind its success and the consequences of that success.

2025-10-27