As the UK Heads Into Lockdown, All Tate Galleries Will Close

The Tate is the first of the UK’s big art museums to announce
that it will close due to coronavirus. As London goes into
semi-official lockdown, and smaller institutions announced that
they were shuttering, the Tate’s director Maria Balshaw and
trustees took the unilateral decision to shutter tomorrow until May
as a precautionary measure.

The decision was made amid the UK government’s rapidly changing
advice, which some have criticized as confusing. On Monday, the UK
prime minister Boris Johnson shifted the government’s strategy,
asking all theatres and pubs to close, and millions of people to
work from home especially in London, as projected number of virus
fatalities suddenly rose. But he stopped short of urging museums to
close, although they have restaurants, cafes, and lecture theatres
at their heart.

The Tate’s decision probably means other national museums will
do likewise within days or by the weekend. Late last week, it
emerged that a Tate Modern staffer had tested positive for the
virus.

The Tate Modern opened a blockbuster Andy Warhol exhibition last
week, in addition to an exhibition by Steve McQueen; at Tate
Liverpool, there is a large show dedicated to Theaster Gates. Kara
Walker’s Tate commission, a water fountain, will be turned off for
the foreseeable future.

The directors and trustees of smaller institutions took matters
in their own hands earlier. On Monday, the South London Gallery
announced it had closed. Next, the director of the Institute of
Contemporary Art in, Stefan Kalmar, announced that together with
his chairman, the artist Wolfgang Tillmans, they had decided to
close its galleries, cafe, cinema, and lecture theatre, as a
precaution. By the end of the day the Camden Arts Centre in North
London announced it was closing, too.

A slew of commercial galleries in Central London had already
announced they were closing their spaces temporarily to the public,
including David Zwirner, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, and White Cube.
In a pointed statement, Matts Gallery said that it was closing its
exhibition after listening to the advice of the World Health
Organisation, not Public Health England or the UK government.

As of Tuesday, the British Museum, National Gallery, and
Victoria and Albert’s museums in London and Dundee remain open but
for how long remains to be seen. Artnet News understands that a
high-level telephone meeting is taking place today between cultural
organisations and the government department responsible for
culture. Last night, when asked whether DCMS’s advice had changed,
a spokeswoman said to listen to the prime minister’s statement.

A spokeswoman for the British Museum says: “We are awaiting
further guidance from DCMS and the government today.” She stressed
that the health and safety of its staff and visitors is an absolute
priority. The museum remains open in the meantime.

Arts Council England, which distributes government funding,
signalled an important shift at the weekend when it announced that
the public facing organisations that it funds they may need to plan
for closure. ACE has made supporting them and artists during the
coronavirus its top priority. The chair of ACE is Nicholas Serota,
a former director of Tate, with the political clout to make tough
calls. Although the directors of the UK’s national museums are no
longer civil servants, stepping out of line will not have been made
lightly by his successor. The Tate’s four galleries, Tate Modern
and Tate Britain in London, Tate Liverpool in the North of England,
and Tate St Ives in the Cornwall will be shut until May 1 according
to the Tate website.

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Will Close appeared first on artnet News.