Tate has a problem. Actually, it has several. From bloated exhibitions that fail to deliver to a Turner Prize that has lost much of its cultural credibility, Britain’s most powerful art institution has been struggling for a while now. And while the appointment of Jessica Morgan as its new director has been welcomed in many quarters, serious questions remain about whether she is the right person to drag Tate into a new era — or whether she will simply keep things ticking along as they always have.
Tate itself has described Morgan as ‘an agent of change’, which is either a genuinely exciting signal or the kind of corporate language that means absolutely nothing. Given the scale of the problems facing the institution, which operates across four museums including Tate Modern and Tate Britain, the pressure on her to deliver real transformation is enormous.
Morgan is, by most accounts, a seriously talented curator. She built a strong reputation at the Dia Art Foundation in the United States, where she was widely praised for her leadership and vision. She also has history with Tate Modern itself, having worked there earlier in her career. On paper, she looks like a solid choice.
But that is precisely where some of the concern lies. Her background is rooted firmly in contemporary art, which is exactly the lane Tate has been operating in for years. The worry among critics is that she will simply continue down the same well-worn path rather than challenge the institution to think differently about what it is and who it serves.
Tate Modern, for all its global fame, has faced repeated criticism for putting on shows that feel overhyped and underdelivered. Big names, flashy marketing, and then exhibitions that leave visitors feeling a bit flat. The institution has an enormous platform and enormous resources, yet it has not always used them to produce genuinely groundbreaking work. There is a sense that Tate has become too comfortable, too predictable, and too focused on reinforcing its own status rather than taking risks.
The Turner Prize is another sore point. Once a genuinely provocative and talked-about event in the British cultural calendar, it has in recent years felt increasingly like an insider conversation that most people have stopped bothering to follow. The prize was meant to challenge, to provoke debate, to get people arguing about what art is and what it should do. Instead, it has drifted into a kind of self-congratulatory loop that generates little genuine excitement outside of a fairly narrow circle.
Then there is the structural issue. Tate is, as one observer put it, a top-heavy montage of four museums. That kind of sprawling setup brings its own complications — questions about resources, priorities, identity, and how the different sites relate to each other. Does it all actually hold together in a coherent way? Many would argue it does not.
For Morgan to be a genuine agent of change, she would need to be willing to ask uncomfortable questions about all of this. Why does Tate do what it does? Who is it actually for? What would it look like if it took real creative risks rather than safe bets with established names? Is there space for programming that reaches beyond the contemporary art world and engages with broader historical and cultural questions?
Nobody is expecting her to immediately pivot Tate towards exhibitions on art and the English Reformation. But the point stands — if the institution is going to genuinely evolve, it needs leadership that is willing to think beyond its existing comfort zones.
The optimistic reading is that Morgan’s experience in the US has given her a fresh perspective, and that her familiarity with Tate from her earlier time there means she understands exactly what needs fixing. She knows the institution, she knows its weaknesses, and she is coming back with the authority and the will to address them.
The pessimistic reading is that her appointment represents more of the same — a safe, respected figure from within the contemporary art establishment who will keep the ship steady without fundamentally changing its direction.
Which version turns out to be true will become clear soon enough. But one thing is certain: Tate cannot afford to simply carry on as it has been. The institution needs a genuine rethink, and whoever leads it needs the courage to push for one.