R
E
V N
E
X
T
Interview with Frances Morris, Director of Tate Modern
In early January 2016, when the Tate announced that staffer Frances Morris had been appointed the new director of Tate Modern, the first woman and the first British national to hold the position, her phone came alive with congratulatory tweets and messages. But there was one that mattered more than any others. It was from her daughter and said simply, “Congrats to my mum #francesmorris SO proud. @tate is lucky to have you.”
Morris became the head of displays at Tate Modern in 2000, the year it opened in the converted Bankside Power Station on London’s Southbank, and became director of international art in 2006. As the director of Tate Modern, Morris took charge of the Switch House, Tate’s new 10-story building designed by Herzog & de Meuron, which opened in June 2016. Situated alongside the current building on London’s Southbank, the addition of the Switch House expands the museum space by 60 percent.
Recently, Morris was in Sydney to deliver a lecture at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) on her 29 years at the Tate and to cement the recently established five-year relationship between the MCA and Tate Modern, which has seen Australia’s national airline Qantas sponsor a joint ownership program between the two institutions. Through the AUD 2.7 million (USD 2 million) financial support from the Qantas Foundation, MCA and the Tate have so far acquired five works by contemporary Australian artists that were displayed at MCA last year, and will later travel to the Tate Modern.
During our conversation in Sydney, Morris talked about her early life, her time as a socialist and how her political views have determined her future plans concerning the “vast sprawl’’ of South London where she grew up, and of positive discrimination in favor of women artists.
Did you have aspirations to be an artist?
Oh yes, drawing was my thing rather than painting. I used a Rotring pen with sepia ink, I loved these pens. I always thought I was going to go to art school and do graphics.
What happened to make you switch from the idea of practicing art to studying theory?
I was beginning to paint and became interested in the history of painting. I expressed that interest to my art teacher at Haberdashers’ Aske’s Hatcham College in South London. Art history was not taught but my teacher decided that she would learn art history and then teach me and anyone else who was interested.
From this experience, I felt myself being more drawn to the academic side of things. During this time, I was also very involved in studying history and English literature. I was enjoying writing, and the excitement of engaging with content and subject matter. I became quite engaged politically, I became a feminist. I later received a scholarship to University of Cambridge—this was a total surprise for me, and I suffered slightly from “imposter syndrome.”
Do you consider yourself a socialist?
Yes, I was once known as the little communist. I have strong views on art in education. I think art education in schools should be part of the core curriculum and it should be so from the very earliest stages. We now have the English Baccalaureate exam in England (a school performance indicator introduced in 2015), which focuses very strongly on academic subjects. However important those subject are, they should not be at the expense of cultural education in the broader sense. All creative arts are incredibly important to academics, but they are also incredibly important to people who are not so academic.
My passion for this comes partly from my own experience, but mainly the evidence I have seen about how engagement with cultural activity opens up so many opportunities for intellectual advancement and pleasurable interface with the world; to have this background is part of being an aware and engaged citizen.
How does your belief in art education inform your direction at Tate Modern?
Tate Modern is about asking questions and encouraging others to ask questions, which is far bigger than just showing pictures on the wall. It is building a way of thinking about the world and a way of approaching objects, perspectives that are really fundamental to all aspects of life. It is a way of encouraging intellectual curiosity.
What would you consider is the driving force of Tate Modern’s success with the public?
Part of Tate Modern’s success is the building [Bankside Power Station], which signalled a different kind of access for the public. The turbine hall turns into a form of public space, where one step from the street brings visitors into the hall, and into the heart of the building. It was and is about the visual arts, and this building has made art accessible in a way that hasn’t been experienced before. The building has helped to democratize art, something that until that moment gave an impression that it was preserved for the elite.
Another thing we did when we opened Tate Modern was to throw all the balls in the air and present the collection unconfined by the old-fashioned linear narrative of art history. Turning instead to a thematic hang, this approach makes art accessible for people who don’t have an art historical background. We open each of our displays with juxtapositions or pairing of two seemingly incompatible works; for example, Monet and Richard Long created a situation where people thought, “I want to go see that,” or, “Why have they done that?” The either loved it or hated it, but contemporary art became a talking point for a more general public than it had before.
You have championed the cause of women artists at Tate Modern, especially Louise Bourgeois, and have recently curated shows of work by Yayoi Kusama and Agnes Martin. Have you set yourself a target, for example that 50 percent of artists on show in Tate must be women?
It is a personal target and not one I would impose on the institution. With that being said, I would love visitors to feel that in five years’ time, when walking around the Tate that one would find interesting how many women artists are on display. I would like to normalize the presence of great women’s art at Tate. The way to do that is to make sure the works are so strong and compelling that curators want to show it despite being from a female artist.
To read more of ArtAsiaPacific’s articles, visit our Digital Library.