ARTS
The great divide
Felicity Owen considers the Tate's move to Bankside and the impact on its historic collection How much do we care whether Lon- don retains its position as the art centre of the world? Nicholas Serota for one cares very much. As director of the Tate Gallery he has a vision. He sees Millbank running in tandem with a new international muse- um for the moderns as the great way for- ward. The road will be uphill but Serota relishes the challenge. The ascent would be smoother were it not for his tendency to score own goals.
Among traditionalists one such is the Turner Prize and its surrounding brouhaha. They need assurance that crowd-pulling gimmickry will not be indulged at the expense of the British historic collection. However, money talks and £50 million from Lottery funds has procured the huge and handsome Bankside Power Station on the river opposite St Paul's Cathedral. A similar sum is being raised for its conversion by the millennium into the Tate Gallery of Mod- ern Art. The idea is that this will take from Millbank all works of foreign origin and also display highlights of the 20th-century British collection. Millbank as the Tate Gallery of British Art will then have space to be the centre for all aspects of art from the 16th century onwards.
This raises fears that the British School may fail to attract its rightful public. Hav- ing already surrendered to the National Gallery some of its masterpieces including Hogarth's 'The Graham Children', Wright of Derby's 'Experiment with the Air Pump' and Gainsborough's 'Market Cart', the loss of the French Post-Impressionists to Bank- side makes it debatable whether enough stars remain in the constellation to satisfy expectations. No longer will Gauguin and van Gogh rub shoulders with O'Conor and Steer, nor Derain with Wyndham Lewis, juxtapositions that have been one of the joys of the New Displays; to make matters worse, after the centenary celebrations of 1997, the north-west quadrant rooms will be rebuilt over two years, leaving a sadly diminished history collection on show dur- ing that period. But the good news is that from the year 2000 Millbank will again present a core col- lection: for the first time up to 15 chosen British artists, including Hogarth, Gains- borough, Reynolds, Blake, Constable, the pre-Raphaelites, Whistler, Sickert, Spencer, Ben Nicholson, Moore and Bacon, will each be allotted a whole room With lesser names in linking areas. The great icon of early 19th-century landscape painting, James Ward's 'Gordale Scar', and James Barry's neo-classical masterpiece, King Lear Weeping over the Body of Co rdelia', will be continually on show look- ing their best against strong new wall colours. Some good Elizabethan pictures as well as Wright of Derby's 'Iron Forge' and Zoffany's 'Cock Match' have recently been acquired, and the director promises to add to the earlier period more major works. However, with the Tate's annual purchase grant set at barely £2 million, the moderns are getting more than their fair share, and with a good picture commanding several million, dependence on outside grants is all too obvious. For more modest pieces, the Gallery relies heavily on bequests and help from the Patrons of British Art.
After eight turbulent years at the Tate during which he has successfully overseen the refurbishment of the Turner Wing and the opening of outposts at Liverpool and St Ives, Serota is inured to criticism. Closely supported by his trustees, who include a cadre of diehard modernists, he is a realist who considers himself the best judge of how to present the two Tates. Both will need to appear dynamic in order to gener- ate financial support and sponsorship as well as media interest. Thus the Turner Prize with its attendant publicity from Channel 4 will continue at Millbank attracting its young audience that brings new life. A confident impresario, the direc- tor accepts some loss of support from peo- ple alienated by innovation: he is a world player who, in bridging the gap between the extremes of taste, hopes to broaden art's overall appeal.
During an interview for this article a glint came into Serota's eye as he talked of plans for filling Bankside's first 100,000 square feet, the central hall providing the drama while each of six suites of galleries is allocated to a theme or period. It is here that future generations will be able to judge whether today's in-fashion art stands the test of time or will be dismissed as a non- event in the same way as works by third- rate late-Victorian academicians are today.
Already the Tate owns the largest collec- tion of American art in Europe, and Serota hopes to add more works by Cy Twombly and Richard Serra, some of whose sculp- tures might well be mistaken for girders dating from Bankside's industrial days, its huge tanks being more than a match for today's monster installations. Two benefac- tors have promised to bequeath their mod- ern collections to strengthen the European content and gifts of Bonnards and Matisses are eagerly awaited. In any case, the British contribution gets stronger from the 1960s, but the current plans for the division of contemporaries between Millbank and Bankside is extremely complicated, and, with a new reserve store coming on stream in Lambeth which will house over half the entire collection at any one time, only a computer is likely to be able to locate a work. Apparently the international stars, Freud and Hockney, will continue to be shown mainly at Millbank, as will Michael Andrews, Auerbach, Blarney, Kossoff, Weight and Wonnacott to name only a few. But in case this appears a segregation of the more conventional artists, the awful Gilbert and George with an odd clutch of modernist sculptors including Caro, Kapoor, Long and Turnbull will also con- tinue with one foot on Millbank.
A clearer solution might be to end Mill- bank's remit at 1960 or thereabouts, in which case there would be no danger of the historic collection once again being squeezed for space as the contemporaries proliferate over the years. Special exhibi- tions at both venues will in any case offer the management a chance to interpret a changing situation.
Extreme taste in international art is well represented by the Patrons of New Art who have subscribed a host of experimental works such as Baumgarten's 'Terra Incog- nita' installation, its fatuity enhanced by an interminable inscription. The mercy is that many such pieces are made for a short shelf life. There is still a flourishing vendet- ta against these members of the so-called Serota-mafia which, dealer-led, is said to make or break the contemporary artist. But Serota is his own man and he was highly amused when Paul Johnson recently accused him in The Spectator of inserting a female dragon of a serpentine species into that most conservative body of Royal Aca- demicians. He equally dismissed the sug- gestion that beauty in art is no longer the criterion it was in Kenneth Clark's day: in assessing a work, Serota believes that a curator should question whether it evokes passion and soul — for him a Rothko, a Twombly or a Callum Innes might answer, all of which goes to show how subjective taste is.
With the director's eye for the main chance, the Tates will show a diversity of work that should strengthen Britain's claim to have the most creative native talent. This displayed alongside special exhibitions of big names, in particular German and American, will give Serota the stage he wants to achieve world-wide influence in the contemporary scene.
With running costs estimated at £10 mil- lion, Bankside, with the help of sponsors, hopes to earn half its annual outgoings from exhibitions, prestigious conference facilities, restaurants, shops, auditoria and workshops. Serota, who is at the peak of his powers, will rule from Millbank, allow- ing scope and authority to two newly appointed deputies, both scholars but with management skills. They will also need a strong marketing sense if the two spectacu- lar showplaces bestriding the river are to be developed for the economic and cultural benefit of the metropolis. The Serota vision urgently needs, and deserves, more sub- stance.
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