Tate Modern director says gallery will continue to acquire indigenous art

Tate Modern will explore different ways of collecting indigenous art, the gallery’s director has suggested.

Karin Hindsbo said one of Britain’s most popular museums “cannot have the same classical ownership structure” of some of these artworks such as when they “belong to their community”.

The gallery’s use of the term “indigenous art” does not refer to work by British artists but instead to native minorities in other countries, such as Aboriginals in Australia, Maori in New Zealand and Inuit in Canada.

Ms Hindsbo said Tate Modern plans to expand the number of exhibitions of “indigenous art” as part of a “huge focus on inclusion and diversity” and a “wider effort to expand the canon of art history”.

She told The Art Newspaper: “Over the past decade there has been a huge focus on inclusion and diversity, in terms of both the collection and the programme.

“That will continue, because there is still so much to be done.”

But Ms Hindsbo, 50, said some indigenous artworks would not be acquired permanently by the gallery, which welcomed five million visitors through its doors last year, and will instead arrive on long-term loans.

She said: “We need to rethink the whole ownership structure of work by indigenous artists.

“When you work with indigenous artists, some of the works belong to their community. So you cannot have the same classical ownership structure.

“Sometimes you need to think in new ways. You need to commit perhaps to loans of the works.”

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She added: “For example, it could be some kind of dual solution or contract with the community. You cannot make the same kind of contract with one individual or gallery.

“It could be a long-term loan. With indigenous practice, you need to think about the arrangements much more carefully.”

Ms Hindsbo said Tate Modern would display the work of Emily Kam Kngwarray, the Aboriginal Australian artist, next year and also put together an initiative on “Sami and Inuit art in Nordic Europe”.

The Danish-born director was previously head of Norway’s national museum in Oslo and director of Kode Museums in Bergen.

The Tate’s current “indigenous” art collections include a woven hanging by Outi Pieski, a Sami artist from Finland, and pencil drawings by Shuvinai Ashoona, a Canada-born Inuit.

Others include a painting by Abel Rodríguez, a Nanuya man from Colombia, and an installation of fruit by Mexican-born Maya-Kaqchikel artist Edgar Calel.

Elsewhere in the interview, Ms Hindsbo also said she did not support environmental protesters who deface artworks in public galleries.

In recent years, Just Stop Oil activists have thrown soup at Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers at the National Gallery and glued themselves to the frames of a copy of The Last Supper in the Royal Academy, John Constable’s The Hay Wain in the National Gallery and Van Gogh’s Peach Trees in Blossom at the Courtauld Gallery.

‘I sympathise with the cause’

“On climate action, I completely understand why this is an important area,” Ms Hindsbo said. “I do understand that activists want to draw attention to climate change and why it is an emergency. So I sympathise with the cause, not with the action taken.

“If you target an artwork you do not have the knowledge of when you actually are making irreparable damage and when you are not.

“I cannot see how destroying art can help a cause, even though I sympathise with the cause.”

Speaking to The Telegraph, Karin Hindsbo, the gallery’s director, said some permanent acquisitions of indigenous art would continue.

“I am delighted that Tate is permanently acquiring more work by indigenous artists and we will continue to do so,” she said.

“There are specific instances where we have used alternative models of ownership, and these illustrate how working with artists from different communities can help us rethink our institutional structures.

“But that rethinking doesn’t mean we will stop bringing great artworks by indigenous artists into our permanent collection, ensuring they are represented in art history in perpetuity.”