Tate Britain to Explore 1990s Britain Through Art and Fashion
Tate Britain will open a major exhibition this fall that looks back at the decade when British art, fashion, and photography began to merge into a single cultural force. “The 90s: Art and Fashion,” curated by Edward Enninful, the former British Vogue editor-in-chief, opens August 8, 2026, and runs through February 14, 2027.
The exhibition will bring together more than 100 works by nearly 70 artists, designers, and photographers. Tate Britain is framing the project as its first major exhibition devoted to the impact of fashion, art, and photography on Britain in the 1990s, a period shaped by recession, creative risk, and a newly visible confidence in British culture.
Enninful said at a press conference on Monday that London in the early 1990s was “raw, unstable, and full of possibility,” adding that the decade was defined less by a single movement than by “an energy” and a refusal of hierarchy. That spirit runs through the exhibition’s roster, which spans the Young British Artists and their wider orbit, as well as the photographers and designers who helped define the era’s visual identity.
Among the artists represented are Helen Chadwick, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Cerith Wyn Evans, Gary Hume, Barbara Walker, Jenny Saville, Sarah Lucas, and Tracey Emin. The photography section includes work by Corinne Day and Juergen Teller, whose images for i-D and Dazed and Confused helped shape the look of DIY grunge culture, alongside photographs by Nick Knight, David Sims, and Wolfgang Tillmans.
The exhibition will also feature Steve McQueen’s film “Bear” (1993) and Chris Ofili’s “No Woman, No Cry” (1998), the painting that won the Turner Prize. Fashion will be represented through garments by Vivienne Westwood, John Galliano, Stella McCartney, and Alexander McQueen, underscoring how closely clothing and contemporary art were intertwined in the decade.
A publication of the same name will accompany the exhibition, edited by Enninful and Dominique Heyse-Moore, senior curator of contemporary British art at Tate Britain. It will include contributions from artists including Sonia Boyce, Yinka Shonibare, and Sarah Burton.
Enninful, best known for his work as an editor and stylist, has taken on curatorial projects in recent years, including a 2024 exhibition of Robert Mapplethorpe’s work at Thaddaeus Ropac in Paris. At Tate Britain, his latest project suggests a broader argument: that the 1990s were not simply a style decade, but a turning point in how Britain saw itself.
