The people of Liverpool have gone exactly one year, three months and two weeks without access to their Tate museum. That’s a pretty long time for a wayward art lover. Unfortunately, they’re going to have to wait quite a lot longer, as the gallery’s grand re-opening has been pushed back to 2027.
Tate Liverpool originally closed on October 26 2023 to make way for a magnificent refurbishment, set to cost a whopping £29.7 million. At the time, it was said that doors would reopen in 2025, but, eagle-eyed readers will already have noticed, there haven’t been many updates.
So, what’s up with Tate Liverpool? Essentially, financial difficulties have set the project back. Gallery director Helen Legg told the BBC that ‘raising money was a little easier’ when the project began in the pandemic. She continued: ‘Now we are close to achieving our goals. It’s taken us a little bit more time’.
A total of £17.85m has already been gathered for the revamp, leaving the museum around £10 million short of its original goal, which it says will need to come from donations and support from foundations. The majority of the existing money has come from government schemes and grants.
All of this money is going towards a complete renovation, primarily modernising the building it inhabits. Tate Liverpool is the second-oldest of the nation’s four Tates, meaning that it ended up being sort of a modern-art-museum guinea pig. Being a trailblazer isn’t easy, as Legg explained to the Guardian: ‘Tate Liverpool got left behind in all of the new thinking that developed afterwards’.
Now, the museum is catching up, letting more light in and moving towards more sustainable fuel alternatives. A hall on the ground floor is also being constructed to allow for bigger exhibitions to take place. All this expansion will also see the visitor capacity jump from 700,000 people a year to 1 million.
When those visitors do return, Legg believes they will ‘[enjoy] improved access to the full breadth of the national collection’, which consists primarily of British art dating back to the 16th century, as well as pieces by international masters like Picasso and Matisse. Once Tate Liverpool returns, visitors can expect to see large scale installations that would never have been possible pre-refurb, so there’s a lot to look forward to.
Liverpool Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram voiced excitement about the changes, saying: ‘This transformation will be a bold reimagining of one of our region's most iconic landmarks…
‘When complete, I'm confident it will continue to offer visitors a world-class cultural experience, with stunning views across our famous river Mersey and spaces that beautifully blend the gallery's rich history with a modern, vibrant future.’
No official date for opening has been given yet – all we know is that it will be a couple more years. Whenever Tate Liverpool’s grand reopening does come, we’re sure it’ll have been worth the wait, and the many millions of pounds.
Tate (across) Britain
If you can’t wait for the Tate Liverpool to reopen, there’s no need to worry. There are three other wonderful Tate museums in England, including the original Tate Britain in Millbank, one all the way down in St Ives, and the Tate baby, the Tate Modern on London’s Southbank (which is currently celebrating its 25th birthday – not such a baby after all).
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