Tate, where Balshaw is director, feels, like museums globally, an increasingly fragile institution, its monolithic authority battered by culture wars and funding constraints (though Balshaw told The Guardian this year, ‘That’s a normal part of life as a museum director’). Where the former used to be the purview of rightwing commentators (The Telegraph’s recent frothing at the museum spending £21,000 ‘on discarded avocado trays’, namely Veronica Ryan’s Arrangement In Layers, Stacking Up Moments I–X, 2016–19, felt like a throwback), Balshaw now must keep an eye out for any controversy that might blow up around the perceived ethics of private funders and sponsors (she’s not averse to making the point herself, using her new book, Gathering of Strangers: Why Museums Matter, to criticise the British Museum for taking money from BP). Tate Modern had shows of work by Mike Kelley and Yoko Ono, while Zanele Muholi returned just three years after their major survey to show new works; Alvaro Barrington received the Tate Britain commission; and Sámi artist Outi Pieski showed at Tate St Ives. Tate Liverpool remained closed for a refurbishment.