Nicholas Serota may have announced that he is moving on to Arts Council England, but this is not the first time that the outgoing director has resigned from the Tate. Back in 1971, Serota (then aged 24) was chairman of the Young Friends of the Tate, which found itself at loggerheads with the institution’s director and trustees. The Tate Gallery was shying away from cutting-edge art, so the rebellious Young Friends decided to set up their own exhibition space and began to convert a dilapidated building in a run-down area near Waterloo station—much to the annoyance of the Tate’s then director, Norman Reid, who feared that the public would assume that this was an official venture. Serota and his colleagues were ordered to stop the exhibitions and the Young Friends committee angrily resigned en masse. The situation was complicated by the fact that Serota had just started his first job—as a regional officer for the Arts Council.