Tate Modern one of London’s most popular cultural attractions has seen a record 5.3 million visitors in 2012. This is the highest ever recorded figure for a calendar year in its history. The figure was up 9.5% on the previous year. Tate Britain has also had a good year with 1.53 million visitors coming through its doors in 2012, a 4.3% increase on the figure for the same period in 2011.
At Tate Modern, the opening of the Tanks in the summer, the Damien Hirst exhibition which attracted 463,000 visitors, and Tino Sehgal 2012 in the Turbine Hall, all part of the London Festival 2012, the culmination of the Cultural Olympiad, contributed to this success along with other exhibitions such as Edvard Munch
Alex Beard, Deputy Director Tate said “It has been an extraordinary year at Tate Modern, opening the world’s first museum galleries permanently dedicated to exhibiting live art, performance, installation and film works alongside an outstanding exhibition programme which has undoubtedly feulled the increase in visitors.”
At Tate Britain, visitor figures have also remained high with the current Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde exhibition proving particularly popular. Tate Britain is currently transforming its galleries as part of a major refurbishment which will be completed this year.
Tate Modern is Britain’s national museum for modern and contemporary art,. It houses a collection from around the world exhibited in the former Bankside Power Station on the banks of the Thames. The awe-inspiring Turbine Hall runs the length of the entire building. Amazing work is open to the public for free and includes masterpieces by artists such as Cézanne, Bonnard, Matisse, Picasso, Rothko, Dalí, Pollock, Warhol and Bourgeois.
Tate Modern is bound to replicate the same sort of figures in 2013. The programme includes a major Roy Lichtenstein retrospective and a Paul Klee exhibition in the autumn, both are predicted to be popular with the critics and the public.
Photo: © ArtLyst 2012