National Gallery gets to grips with modern art

Nicholas Penny, director of the National Gallery, has raised eyebrows in the London art establishment by announcing shows for next year that appear to tread on the toes of Tate Modern. A walk-through installation recreating Amsterdam's red light district is among the highlights of the 2009 exhibition programme unveiled this week. The work by American artists Ed and Nancy Kienholzis shows peeping toms peering into prostitutes' rooms.

It is not the content of the piece that has raised awkward questions, but the idea that the National Gallery, normally associated with works by Hogarth, Turner and Constable, appears to be impinging on the Tate’s territory with this and its next ‘blockbuster’, Picasso: Challenging the Past, to be staged in February.

Penny denies it is part of a concerted pitch to lure art students from the Tate Modern - "We will continue to interact with contemporary art but there are no plans to increase it", he says – while curator Chris Riopelle says the Picasso exhibition is well suited to the National Gallery because it will look at the impact of the 19th-century European tradition on Picasso's modern works and how his paintings were "deeply implicated in the art of the past".

That said, Penny acknowledges that a contract signed in 1996, stipulating that the National Gallery would only acquire work produced before 1900, may need to be "renegotiated". He says: "We are not happy with 1900 as the final ending of the National Gallery's collection. It's a matter to be discussed in the future and this is not the right moment to discuss it. What is right is that we have a proper understanding with [the] Tate about what we are trying to do." Watch this space. ·