The Financial Times‘s Peter Aspden gropes for a meaning in the 10th anniversary of the opening of Tate Modern and finds a brilliant one. The vibrant and wildly successful cultural and tourist attraction is emblematic of something much larger:
Within just 10 years, the old provocations have become the new orthodoxies. And as a result, British cultural life is more vivacious, more democratic and more popular than ever before. Visual art, even in its most audacious forms – a succession of weird projects on Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth, for example – is a rock-solid crowd-puller. Our theatres and cinemas have attracted record audiences, even during the past 18 months of financial uncertainty. Great cultural institutions such as the British Museum and the Royal Shakespeare Company have reinvented themselves, finding fresh twists in the presentation of their zealously restored treasures.
A New Dawn for British Culture (Financial Times)
