LONDON.- The Chairman and Trustees of Tate today announced that leading British curator Jessica Morgan (age 57) currently Director of Dia Art Foundation, has been appointed Director of Tate. The appointment was approved by the outgoing Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer MP. Morgan will become the tenth Director in Tate’s history, taking up her new role on 1 January 2027.
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Jessica Morgan has been Director of Dia Art Foundation since 2015. Based in New York, Dia is a multi-sited organisation which commissions and organises artist projects and exhibitions, cares for a growing collection of modern and contemporary art, and stewards several major site-specific art installations across the USA and Germany. Under Morgan’s leadership Dia has become a more expansive and dynamic institution, from increasing free admission and undertaking capital projects across all of its sites, to bringing a broader range of artists and artworks into its collection and exhibition programme.
Morgan previously worked at Tate Modern as The Daskalopoulos Curator, International Art, from 2010 to 2014, and was Curator at Tate from 2002 to 2010. At Tate, she curated numerous major exhibitions and organised new commissions for the Turbine Hall, as well as playing a key role in the growth of Tate’s international collection. Before Tate, Morgan served as Chief Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston and a curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
Morgan recently curated a retrospective of Lee Ufan at SMAC, Venice (2026), and the acclaimed group show Minimal at the Bourse de Commerce in Paris (2025-26). She served as the artistic director of the 10th Gwangju Biennale in 2014. Morgan is on numerous international advisory boards, including the Sounding Board for Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany; the Advisory Committee for the Collection, MACBA, Barcelona, Spain; the Advisory Committee for Khao Yai Foundation, Thailand; and the Advisory Board for the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre, Mumbai, India.
Morgan holds an MA in Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art and a BA and MA in Art History from Cambridge University. She was a Mellon Fellow at the Yale Centre for British Art, Yale University, and a Contemporary Art Curatorial Fellow at The Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University.
Roland Rudd, Chairman of Tate, said: “Jessica is an exceptional leader and a deeply respected figure across the sector. Her visionary revitalisation of Dia Art Foundation, as well as her prior experience at Tate and her many years working with artists and institutions around the world, make her the ideal person to lead Tate into a new era.”
Jessica Morgan said: “It is an immense privilege to be asked by the Trustees to become the new Director. Tate is undoubtedly the world's foremost institution for international modern and contemporary art and for British art, leading the field through its collection and exhibition programme. My time as a curator at Tate deeply informed my work in the last eleven years steering Dia Art Foundation, with artists and our public always at the centre of what we do. I look forward to this pivotal next stage at Tate, and most importantly, continuing and advancing the incredible work of Tate’s committed and talented team in the years to come.”
Tate is one of the world’s most renowned and successful visual arts institutions. Every year it welcomes millions of visitors to its four galleries: Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It also lends thousands of artworks from its collection to museums and galleries across the UK – where they are seen by over 3 million people – and to venues around the globe. It has built the largest arts membership in the world, with over 160,000 Tate Members and 190,000 16-25 year olds in Tate Collective, and its recent exhibitions are among the most popular in its history.
Morgan joins Tate at an exciting moment for the organisation, as Tate Liverpool prepares to reopen in 2027 following a major transformation. She will take up her new role on 1 January 2027, succeeding Maria Balshaw CBE. Until then, Karin Hindsbo (Deputy Director of Tate and Director of Tate Modern) is serving as Interim Director of Tate.
Jessica Morgan (b. 1968, London) joined Dia Art Foundation as Director in January 2015 and was named Nathalie de Gunzburg Director in October 2017. At Dia, Morgan is responsible for strengthening and activating all parts of Dia’s multivalent programme, including its pioneering Land art projects, site-specific commissions, and collections and programming across its constellation of twelve sites.
Since assuming directorship, Morgan has led a series of initiatives reaffirming and reinvigorating the nonprofit’s founding vision and principles. This has included the reopening of its gallery spaces in Chelsea and the advancement of Dia’s exhibition programme, including recent monographic presentations of Agnes Martin, Meg Webster, Helio Oiticica, Lee Ufan, Roni Horn, Tehching Hsieh and Senga Nengudi, which foster a sustained consideration of a single artist’s work. Morgan has continued Dia’s commitment to durational and large-scale commissions, facilitating major new work by artists including, recently, Steve McQueen, Delcy Morelos, Carl Craig, Camille Norment and Lucy Raven, and in 2015 realising the first Dia commission outside the continental United States since 1982 with Allora & Calzadilla’s site-specific work Puerto Rican Light (Cueva Vientos), situated in a remote area of Puerto Rico.
Under Morgan’s directorship, Dia has expanded its constellation of locations and sites with the acquisition of Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels (1973-76) in 2018, and Cameron’s Rowland’s Depreciation (2018) in 2023. In this time, Dia has also grown and broadened its permanent collection to spotlight a more diverse and international mix of artists, adding substantial bodies of work by Mary Corse, Sam Gilliam, Joan Jonas, Robert Morris, Charlotte Posenenske, Dorothea Rockburne, Robert Ryman, Kishio Suga, Anne Truitt and Lee Ufan, among others.
During her tenure at Dia, Morgan has instigated a robust, collaborative touring strategy, bringing works from the collection to international audiences. Recent off-site exhibitions curated by Morgan include Lee Ufan at SMAC, Venice (2026), Dan Flavin: Light, Color, and Space at Malba, Buenos Aires (2026), and Minimal at the Bourse de Commerce, Paris (2025-26).
In 2018, Morgan announced a comprehensive, multi-year campaign to advance Dia’s mission and programme, including the upgrade, revitalisation, and ongoing stewardship of its key programmatic spaces and artist sites. Dia Chelsea reopened following renovation in April 2021 as a 32,500-square-foot facility, including 20,000 square feet of integrated, street-level exhibition and programming space. In summer 2027, 8 additional acres of landscape will open to the public at Dia Beacon. These projects are part of two capital campaigns which have also contributed to raising the organisation’s endowment to nearly $200 million, an increase of 400%.
Prior to assuming her position at Dia, Morgan was The Daskalopoulos Curator, International Art, at Tate Modern in London from 2010 to 2014, and was Curator at Tate from 2002 to 2010. At Tate, she organised a number of important exhibitions including the group shows The EY Exhibition: The World Goes Pop (2015–16) and Common Wealth (2003) and retrospectives of Saloua Raouda Choucair (2013), Gabriel Orozco (2011), John Baldessari (2009–10) and Martin Kippenberger (2006). Morgan also curated several Unilever Series commissions for the Turbine Hall. In addition to her work on exhibitions, Morgan played a key role in the growth of Tate’s collection, driving the development of the museum’s holdings of mid-century and emerging art from North America, the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. Morgan was previously Chief Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, and a curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
Morgan curated the 2020-22 Verbier Art Summits and served as the artistic director of the 10th Gwangju Biennale in 2014. Morgan is on numerous international advisory boards, including the Sounding Board for Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany; the Advisory Committee for the Collection, MACBA, Barcelona, Spain; the Advisory Committee for Khao Yai Foundation, Thailand; and the Advisory Board for the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre, Mumbai, India.
