As director of Tate, Maria Balshaw knows better than anyone that in turbulent times, art soothes the soul.
If you’re finding working from home tough, spare a thought for Maria Balshaw. The Tate director would normally be striding around one of her four magnificent galleries but, thanks to the lockdown, she’s having to run them from her kitchen. Because the buildings may be closed, but the thirst for art is stronger than ever.
How is she finding it? “As with everybody, it’s deeply strange but also surprisingly possible,” she says. “We’re very much open online, and doing huge amounts of work.”
Tate has always had a strong online presence, with millions dipping in to explore not just works from the galleries – Tate Britain, Modern, Liverpool and St Ives – but everything from videos of artists in their studios to inspirational how-to guides (if you’ve ever wanted to learn to paint like Kandinsky, now’s your chance). Yet since the pandemic hit, visits to the website have skyrocketed with people seeking solace in art.
“There’s been this hunger since we’ve all been locked down, and we’ve had huge numbers of requests: ‘Can we see this?’ ‘How can I learn more?’,” says the 50-year-old. “The collection has always been there, but people didn’t have time, and the one positive thing that has been given back to many people is a bit more time.
“We saw an incredible spike of activity around the Tate Kids website,” she adds. “There’s a gallery where children can upload their artworks, and there were 1,500 in the first weekend of lockdown. They’re completely memorable because they’re full of hope: there’s all manner of rainbows, and you get the sense that children are going to the park, and into nature, as a newly-exciting thing, because it’s the high point of their day.
“Art gives us access to a world that’s bigger than us, and that sense of hope is really important.”
Maria is no stranger to green spaces herself. She grew up on the edge of a park in Leicester, where her father was senior parks officer, and as a child was an unusual combination of bookish and bouncy.
“I was a reader, but I was also a rhythmic gymnast,” she explains. “My mum took me to a gym class when I was really little, I’m sure because I was quite lively, and that became a career as a child – I was in the national squad. I always enjoyed art, but my first artform was dance.”
She eventually stopped in her late teens: “My body just couldn’t keep it up, really. Like many English girls my legs weren’t quite long enough, so I let it go. But I never let go of that love of movement.”
Growing up, there wasn’t much on the cultural front to excite the bright schoolgirl. “Discovering museums and galleries was almost a rebellion for me,” she recalls. “I spent my teenage years in Northampton, and there weren’t contemporary art galleries or art museums there, so that was my motivation to go on the train to Birmingham or London and find art.
“I have very vivid memories of being about 15, and working out how to use the tube to get to what was then just The Tate, and seeing Bridget Riley’s work and thinking ‘That’s what I was looking for.’”
Did she ever think she’d be in charge? “No, not for a moment,” she laughs. “Even more pointedly I went to university in Liverpool and, as I arrived, Tate Liverpool opened. I loved it, and I couldn’t have even imagined working there, let alone ending up in charge of it.”
She graduated with a first in English and cultural studies, followed by a PhD and a career in academia. “I really enjoyed it. I wrote books, did lectures, led research projects. But after about a decade I realised that what I was really interested in is how the public engage with things, and the impact that art can have on the world.”
On a mission to prove that art didn’t have to belong in a frame, Maria took over Manchester’s Whitworth Art Gallery in 2006, and quickly made her very bold mark. Memorable moments included removing all the paintings in favour of a four-hour show featuring 14 performance artists; displaying Cornelia Parker’s Cold Dark Matter (a shed exploded into thousands of pieces suspended by invisible threads); and ripping out the fence between the gallery and the next-door park to make absolutely everyone feel welcome. Oh, and raising more than £15 million for a renovation. When Sir Nicholas Serota retired as director of Tate in 2017, nobody was surprised when she took over.
In those three years, Maria has faced almost unimaginable challenges, and not just from the pandemic. “The week after I arrived there was the terror attack at London Bridge and Borough Market, and then we had the tragic incident at Tate Modern,” she says, referring to the teenager with mental health issues who threw a 6-year-old French boy from a balcony last August; he’s still recovering in hospital.
“It was devastating for the little boy and his family, and for all of us who work at Tate. All you can do is pull together, and hold on to the sense that we are, for so many people, a place of solace and inspiration and rest and relaxation, and we have to keep being that.
“I remember coming into Tate Modern the day after the terror attack, and there was a wonderful artwork by Janet Cardiff – a beautiful sound-piece of choral work which comes from a whole host of speakers placed in a circle around the room. The room was almost full, and people were just sitting on the floor, and they were hugging each other.
“Some people looked upset, but not in a bad way, and other people looked absolutely at peace. And I just stood there and thought well, this is what we’re for. We’re here to lift people’s souls, because that’s what art does for us.”
Maria, who is also a qualified yoga instructor, lives in Kent with her husband, Nick Merriman, director of London’s Horniman Museum. She has two children from her first marriage, and two stepsons, who are all in their 20s.
The Tate Modern team raced to film a tour of its flagship Andy Warhol show just before lockdown. “The exhibition only opened the week before we closed, and it’s heartbreaking to think of those works sitting on their own in the gallery at the moment,” she says. “But literally tens of thousands of people have now seen them on YouTube.”
Her current preoccupation is reopening. “We’re dealing with two contradictory things: people really want to come back, but only if it’s safe.” Plans include extensions of what they already do, such as markers on the floor, distance queues and timed tickets.
An edited version of this interview appeared in Waitrose Weekend in June 2020 (c) Waitrose