The 90s at Tate Britain: Why the Critics Are Cross, and Why You Might Still Go

Few exhibitions this autumn arrived with a louder fanfare than The 90s: Art and Fashion at Tate Britain. Guest-curated by Edward Enninful, the former editor of British Vogue who spent the decade itself in the fashion department at i-D, it promised a fresh look at the moment when London’s art, style and club culture collided and the city briefly became the coolest place on earth. Three weeks after opening, the verdict from critics is in, and it is not kind. That makes it one of the most interesting shows in London to argue about.

What is actually on the walls

The exhibition runs across seven rooms, each built around a theme. There is the turn away from the glossy excess of the 1980s, a room on body horror shaped by the shadow of the HIV crisis, a section on nightclubs and raves as engines of social change, a room on Black creative influence, and a closing passage on history, dressing up and nostalgia. Around 70 artists and designers are represented, with well over a hundred works.

The opening is strong. Sarah Lucas’s boots, with razor blades tucked under the toecaps, set a tone of defiance, and her Chicken Knickers (1997) is as blunt and funny as ever. Corinne Day’s grungy photographs for The Face, shot in her Soho flat, sit alongside Juergen Teller and Wolfgang Tillmans. Almost an entire room goes to Alexander McQueen, including the red dress from his Joan collection and the sculpted armour-like corsets he made with the jeweller Shaun Leane. Much of the photography is pinned straight to the walls, like a teenager’s bedroom.

The case against

The sharpest attack came from Sarah Kent at The Arts Desk, who called the show “a dog’s dinner” and awarded it two stars. Her central complaint is about juxtaposition. Hamad Butt’s fragile glass sculptures, filled with toxic gases and made by a young gay British Pakistani artist who died in 1994, are placed in a room alongside McQueen’s antlered jacket and a Chapman brothers sculpture. In the room devoted to Black practitioners, Donald Rodney’s In the House of My Father and Chris Ofili’s No Woman, No Cry, his painting for Doreen Lawrence, share space with sharp tailoring and street-style photographs. To Kent, setting memorials to illness and racist murder beside well-cut suits flattens everything into what she calls “meaningless mush”.

Others share the unease from different angles. Luxury London’s reviewer, broadly sympathetic, still felt the show leans heavily on Enninful’s own contact book, with fashion photography by long-time collaborators outweighing the art, and noted that Ozwald Boateng suits stand front and centre while the Ofili sits in a shadowy corner. Ben Luke, writing for The Nerve, found the mix of masterpieces and magazine shoots fell short of the serious reappraisal the decade deserves. Several writers point out that Damien Hirst, the decade’s great provocateur, is represented by a single, rather polite sculpture of two small sharks.

The case for

Not everyone is unhappy. A reviewer for southlondon.co.uk praised the show for drawing attention to how much Black creative input in the 1990s went unrecognised at the time, and singled out Gillian Wearing’s Peckham work and Anish Kapoor’s pieces as highlights. Even the doubters tend to admire the McQueen room and the final pairing of Yinka Shonibare’s Diary of a Victorian Dandy with Galliano and Westwood’s historical fantasies, a neat reminder that 90s designers and artists were both tearing up the past and raiding it.

There is also a real point buried in Enninful’s approach. The YBAs did not work in isolation. They showed in empty warehouses and shops left behind by recession, they were photographed for the same magazines that launched fashion careers, and they partied in the same clubs. An exhibition that insists art and fashion were one conversation is not wrong in principle. The quarrel is over whether this particular hang honours the weight of individual works or treats them as moodboard material.

Why this matters beyond Millbank

Fashion has become one of the most reliable ways for large museums to sell tickets. The pushback against this show is less about snobbery towards clothes than about curatorial care: what happens when an artwork made in grief is reduced to a mood. That is a question every gallery-goer can bring to any exhibition, large or small.

It is also a useful reminder of where the 90s actually happened. The decade’s energy came from artist-run spaces and small commercial galleries, many of them in east and south London, taking risks on young names. If the Tate show leaves you wanting more depth, the independent galleries that grew out of that moment, and those still championing artists the big institutions overlook, are the natural next stop.

Should you go?

If you lived through the decade, expect a jolt of recognition and some irritation. If you didn’t, it is a lively, if shallow, primer. Go with Kent’s criticisms in mind and judge the juxtapositions for yourself. Spend time with the Rodney and the Ofili, and the show may say more than its curator intended.

The 90s: Art and Fashion is at Tate Britain, London, until 14 February 2027. Ticketed; check tate.org.uk for prices and concessions.