Tate Modern director Karin Hindsbo: 'Yes we should be 100 per cent funded, but that's not how the world works'
As she neared the end of her six year contract as Director of the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo, Karin Hindsbo was in reflective mood. Perhaps now was the time to move away from museums; after all, the Danish-born art historian had just completed the mammoth task of bringing together four separate Norwegian institutions, with a combined collection of 400,000 objects, into one newly constructed mega-museum with a staggering budget of £400m. It was a lot.
The only thing that could make her change her mind, she joked to her friends and family, would be if Tate Modern came calling.
Sitting in her bright corner office on the South Bank, the new director of Tate Modern laughs at the memory. “I actually said that out loud, and more than once,” says Hindsbo, 50, who took over from her predecessor Frances Morris in September. “And then the call came. So I needed to reconsider.”
Why Tate Modern, among all the world’s great institutions? “I think this is one of the greatest institutions there is,” she shrugs. “It's a
