London Evening Standard/London

Tate Modern employees listen to artist Suzanne Lacy’s sound piece - part of her The Crystal Quilt works - in The Tanks during the official opening of The Tanks yesterday
Gallery boss Sir Nicholas Serota hailed the important financial contribution of “non-doms” as he unveiled Tate Modern’s dramatic new galleries — The Tanks — yesterday.
Tate director Sir Nicholas cited a long list of foreign-born donors as evidence of London’s place as an international city and hailed their contribution to the excitement generated by the £215mn extension to what is already the world’s most popular modern art gallery.
Non-doms are resident in the UK but not “domiciled” here for tax purposes — and while not all the benefactors were non-doms, Sir Nicholas said the support of those who were was a strong riposte to criticisms of them.
“It’s a very visible answer to the criticisms that have come from government and others about non-dom tax-payers not making a contribution to the cultural life of the country,” he said.
“There’s a huge number of people who were born elsewhere but have an affection for and commitment to London. They are people who want to make a contribution to the city in which they live or spend a huge amount of their time.”
The full list of benefactors includes bankers, financiers and hedge fund managers led by a string of Americans — Mala Gaonkar, James Chanos, Noam Gottesman, and Howard W Lutnick, the man who rebuilt the financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald after the Twin Towers attacks — as well as the Frenchmen Franck Petitgas and Emmanuel Roman, the Belgian Pierre Lagrange and his former wife Catherine Lagrange.
Other support came from the Swiss pharmaceuticals heiress Maja Hoffmann, Christina and John Chandris, from the Greek shipping family, Tiqui Atencio Demirdjian, the Venezuelan collector and her husband Ago, South African real estate investor Manfred Gorvy and wife Lydia, and Australian television executive Elisabeth Murdoch.
John Studzinski, the American financier who kickstarted fundraising with a £5mn gift, and Hoffmann are honoured with spaces named after them in recognition of their generosity. Tate chairman of trustees Lord Browne is one of the few big British donors.
Altogether they have helped fund the world’s first dedicated spaces for live art, performance, installations and films.
Sir Nicholas said: “It’s an incredibly exciting moment for London as well as for the Tate. It’s going to give us an incredible range of what we can present from the most intimate to the most boisterous and noisy.”
The new spaces are opening for the Olympics for an initial 15 weeks.