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Jessica Morgan has been confirmed as the new director of the Tate, marking her return to the arts institution where she worked as curator for more than a decade, at a critical time in its history.
Morgan, a strong front-runner in the race to replace Maria Balshaw, who left last spring nine years of reignhe is currently based in New York, where he has led the Dia Art Foundation since 2015.
One issue surrounding Morgan was his salary at Dia, which is thought to be more than the £220,000-£225,000 Balshaw earned at the Tate.
The Tate’s chairman, Roland Rudd, said he had paid Morgan a lot “for the challenges he faced”, confirming that he was willing to “take a big cut” to take on the role.
Described as a “transformational agent” by the Tate, Morgan will need to lead the organization through the financial crisis, improve poor staff morale and deal with the changing visitor numbers.
Rudd told the Guardian that Morgan would “make a lot of demands” on the commission. “They are agents of change, but they take people,” he said. “In Dia they changed the museum, but they did it in a way that transports people and I really like it.”
Morgan said it was a great honor to take up the role at the Tate, which he called “the world’s leading center for modern and contemporary art and British art”.
He said his time as curator at the Tate “deeply informed” his work at Dia, where he put “artists and our people at the center of what we do”.
Morgan added: “I look forward to this next phase at the Tate and, most importantly, to continuing and developing the amazing work of the Tate’s dedicated and talented team in the years to come.”
He oversees an organization that has collapsed after several difficult years. The economy was hit hard during the pandemic, which led to overcrowding, restructuring and “cultural wars” that, according to a senior official, left workers “down”.
Recently, there has been great news, with the success of Balshaw’s Tracey Emin retrospective, a smashing ticket sale accompanied by Frida Kahlo exhibition, and the great admiration for Ana Mendieta’s exhibition at Tate Modern.
But the Tate is different from other British art institutions, which have four locations spread around the world that can make money visible, and the feeling in some areas that they have not found a new way since the departure of Nicholas Serota, who created Tate Modern and was. post for 28 years.
Many will welcome Morgan’s nomination. When the search for Balshaw’s successor began, his name was on many people’s lips, partly because of his association with the Tate, but also because of his reputation as an art patron and tireless fundraiser.
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Frances Morris, first Tate Modern Director, described the 57-year-old as “a very hard-working person with a sense of what is right”.
Morgan studied history at Cambridge and the Courtauld Institute of Artbefore establishing a reputation for developing talent from the Middle East, South Asia, South Korea and Latin America.
“What inspires me is finding artists that we don’t talk about or write about, that we don’t show,” he said.
“He has a lot of ideas,” Rudd said. “I think that within the committee, there were a few people who said that he has been ridiculed a lot, is he that good?
He is also the coolest director Tate has ever had, wearing designers like Rabih Kayrouz, and described in New York magazine and The Gentlewoman.
The appointment of Morgan was one of Keir Starmer’s last jobs as Prime Minister. It will begin in January, with interim director and former director of Tate Modern, Karin Hindsbo, in charge until then.
