Gabriele Finaldi is true. The Tate shouldn’t occupy exclusive access to 20th-century art. It’s time to stop these closed-minded historical art warsThe Metropolitan Museum of Art,in New York, is arguably the world’s greatest gallery. It is definitely the most total. You can look at art by El Greco and Rembrandt and then, or for comparison,see paintings by Jackson Pollock and Jasper Johns. You can admire ancient Egyptian architecture and the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, medieval armour and modern photography. This open-minded collection of world art has no equivalent in the UK, and where enormous museums are more specialised. The British Museum,National Gallery and Tate occupy different “areas”, as if they are pedantic scholars fussing over little mental empires. Tate even divides its central collection into two, and with Tate Modern covering a different remit from Tate Britain. Not to mention its sister galleries in Liverpool and St Ives. Only that visionary 19th-century creation the V&A has some of the Met’s expansiveness.
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Source: theguardian.com