It was perhaps inevitable that the Tate’s press conference, held at Tate Britain on 9th September to launch its Report for 2009–10, was a low-key affair. Although the general mood – from the platform, at least – was positive, there can have been no one present who was unaware of the Government’s guillotine suspended above the arts in Britain. The Spending Review to be announced later this month (20th October) is, of course, the chief instrument of forthcoming cuts; but the general tightening of belts and the tailoring or abandonment of plans, already coming into effect, have coloured our view of ‘the art of the possible’. How the Tate rises to the challenge will be carefully scrutinised by many other museums and institutions.

But before discussing some of the Tate’s achievements and difficulties, a few words must be said about the Report itself. In spite of all its facts and figures, it is less inclusive than ones from only a few years ago. For example, in the 2000–02 Report (admittedly covering two years rather than one) over eighty of its 176 pages were devoted to acquisitions; here we have twelve. There were useful complete lists of Tate staff; here there is none (perhaps too many changes to keep track of?); no longer are curators’ publications listed; and loans to the Tate’s collections have disappeared. An infinitely fuller and more- rewarding picture was given in 2002 than the sixty-four-page brochure of 2010 in which text is drowned in artwork.1 It is written in a prose of buzz words and clichés reminiscent of a city council chamber at the height of New Labour. Almost randomly picked is this example: ‘Tate consistently seeks audience plurality, while promoting partnership in leadership development and sustainability’. Compounding such obfuscation is the fact that a number of sections are printed in a grey typeface on black panels which themselves are printed on top of full-page photographs, a ghostly residue of the supporting image seeping through each panel. They are extremely difficult to read. 

The self-congratulatory tone is to be expected in such a report and is often perfectly justifiable. This is after all the tenth anniversary of the opening of Tate Modern, which has become the most visited museum of modern art in the world. But it becomes a little wearisome to find that Tate exhibitions and displays have been ‘spectacular’, ‘the most important’ and ‘tremendously’ and ‘hugely’ successful. Visitor figures are quoted as though they are the only index of success. In this regard Tate Modern is undoubtedly a success, going beyond its function as museum to being an international tourist phenomenon and business model. It might be said, however, that Tate Britain is the truer success in terms of display, coherence and variety of exhibitions and in the way it has overcome perceptions of it as the poor sister stranded up-river since 2000. It is good to see that its attendance figures are robust but also that several of its galleries are near-perfect in their display. But change is on its way and from early next year to 2013 the collection galleries and other areas (shop, café, etc.) will undergo a comprehensive facelift.

Tate Modern’s major consideration for the future is the long-proposed extension on the south side of the building, on which work has already begun. It is all very well to say that planning for the future has to balance ‘pragmatism with confidence and aspiration’, but the reality of the situation might suggest a more desperate equation. Although fund-raising for this Leviathan has been sluggish (if somewhat improved in 2009–10), the Director of Tate assured the press conference that the full monies would be raised (roughly half of the £200 million cost has been achieved to date). The extension was part of the plans for Tate Modern almost from the start and seemed a perfect example of Thomas Krens’s notorious ‘expand or die’ manifesto for museums. Now, ten years later, one might exchange his ‘or’ to ‘and’. The project appears as some overreaching fantasy whose additional spaces and exponential running costs will not necessarily guarantee quality (the stewardship of the current building leaves much to be desired), a kind of cultural bodybuilding that could easily result in muscle-bound immobility. Tate Modern was a miracle of vision and perseverance against many odds. But do miracles strike twice in the same place?

Much of the press conference was devoted to the announcement of forthcoming exhibitions. Following Gauguin: Maker of Myth, currently at Tate Modern, another highly popular figure, Joan Miró, will be the subject of a full retrospective (14th April to 11th September). At Tate Liverpool another ‘top of the pops’ figure, René Magritte, will be examined through famous and less-known (but still ‘iconic’) works (24th June to 16th October). At Tate Britain, Watercolour explores the medium and its historic usage and runs for six months (16th February to 21st August), overlapping with The Vorticists: Manifesto for a Modern World, in which Vorticism is considered as an Anglo-American movement. Later in 2011, two singular figures in British art, John Martin and Barry Flanagan, will have con­current retrospectives. 

In this context, mention should be made of Romantics, a new long-running display drawn entirely from the permanent collection which looks at British painting in the first half of the nineteenth century. It occupies the Clore Gallery usually devoted to the Turner Bequest which, over the years, has become something between a shrine and a graveyard. Turner is central to the display but his work is seen alongside that of his contemporaries, Constable above all, who provided an astonishing burst of talent at the start of the nineteenth century. It is a crowded hang and one perhaps that brings us no nearer to any worthwhile redefinition of British Romantic art. But it is well worth a visit, particularly for unfamiliar works, not often on view, as well, of course, for a refreshing look at some of the best-known paintings at Millbank.

1    Tate Report 09–10 can be downloaded from www.tate.org.uk/tatereport.