Maria Balshaw, a figurehead in the Manchester art scene, has been named as the new head of the Tate by the museum board, The Guardian reports, and her appointment is awaiting confirmation by the Prime Minister. Balshaw built a reputation as a dynamic leader in Manchester after leading a £15m redevelopment at the Whitworth Museum, and becoming a strategic lead for culture with the Manchester City Council. (more…)
The Tate was reportedly paid only of £350,000 a year for its partnership with British Petroleum, early figures released by the museum show. “The company tried to buy public support by quadrupling the amount of money they gave the Tate,” says Emma Hughes of activist group Platform. “As BP fought over compensation for Gulf of Mexico communities in the US courts they were throwing money at the Tate in an attempt to de-toxify their brand.” (more…)
The Tate is receiving an additional £6 million in funding from the British Government this year, earmarked to help fund the operations at the Tate Modern. “Late last year the government in principle committed to an uplift in grant-in-aid to support the running of the new Tate Modern,” a Museum spokesman confirms. (more…)
Tate Modern Director Chris Dercon will leave the museum to head up Berlin’s experimental theatre landmark, the Volksbühne in 2017, The Guardian reports. “Chris Dercon is helping to open Tate Modern to a wider world and more diverse audiences through his support for a more international programme, photography, live performance and film,” says Tate head Nicolas Serota. “We look forward to working with him on the opening of the new Tate Modern and until he takes up his appointment in Berlin in 2017.” (more…)
The Tate Modern is will launch a two day “dance marathon” this May, inviting a range of modern dance performers to exhibit and teach within the museum space. “The whole feel of it over the 48 hours will be about this constant transformation,” says curator Catherine Wood. “It will be partly a presentation of focused works of choreography and then a spreading of more pop-up things, through the collection gallery and the public spaces.” (more…)
The Tate Britain has announced plans for a major retrospective focused on the work of Barbara Hepworth, which will feature a set of photograms from the artist’s archives, made by silhouetting the artist’s head against photo-reactive paper. “It is a very beautiful thing in the flesh,” says Sophie Bowness, the artist’s granddaughter. (more…)
Joseph Mallord William Turner, Ancient Rome; Agrippina Landing with the Ashes of Germanicus (1839), all images courtesy Tate Britain
On view at the Tate Britain is the first exhibition devoted entirely to the work of Joseph Mallord Wiliam Turner, created between the years of 1835 and his death in 1851. The show brings together major series of works including a group of square pictures highlighting Turner’s tendency towards innovation, even at the end of his life.
Tate Liverpool has announced plans to open an exhibition focusing on the work of Andy Warhol this November, the first major solo exhibition of the artist’s work in Northern England. The expansive exhibition will include over 100 works from the artist’s career, and will also include a recreation of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable. (more…)
As part of new project titled “After Dark”, the Tate Britain will deploy four remote-controlled robots throughout its galleries for five nights beginning September 13th. The public will be able to watch live-stream footage on the Tate’s website as the camera-equipped robots roam the museum’s collection, which includes works by David Hockney, Lucian Freud, and Henry Moore, for five hours each night. Since the robots choose new operators every few minutes, some viewers might get the chance to control the feed and see their favorite artworks in the empty galleries. (more…)
The Tate has unveiled their 2015 lineup, which will include sculptor Alexander Calder‘s first retrospective at the Tate Modern, from November 2015 to the spring of 2016. The Tate Modern will also present an a large exhibition of works by the South-African artist Marlene Dumas in Spring 2015 in addition to the show “The World Goes Pop,” an exploration of Pop Art in the ’60s and ’70s. At the Tate Britain, Cornish sculptor Barbara Hepworth will be featured during Summer 2015, and the museum will also present exhibition of works by painter Frank Auerbach during the following autumn season. At the Tate Liverpool, the late work by Jackson Pollock will be exhibited in a summer show titled “Jackson Pollock: Blind Spots”. (more…)
Tracey Emin‘s “My Bed,” which set an auction record for the artist early this month, has given on a 10-year loan to the Tate by collector Count Christian Duerckheim, a Cologne-based industrialist. “I always admired the honesty of Tracey, but I bought My Bed because it is a metaphor for life, where troubles begin and logics die.” (more…)
New research has shown that a set of watercolors by J.M.W. Turner, previously thought to depict the burning of Parliament, are in fact paintings of a fire at the Tower of London. The note was discovered by Matthew Imms, a cataloguer at the Tate. “We could tell that the works were fairly late in Turner’s career so I cast around for other events at that time, and came across various images, popular prints and so on of the Tower of London fire in 1841,” Imms says. “It immediately clicked, because the various uncertain features of the architecture and so on matched quite well.” (more…)
The Tate Gallery is the subject of controversy, after including work by one of its trustees, the Turner Prize-winning artist Tomma Abts. “This is all very wrong. There are tens of thousands of artists in this country who would give anything to have their work at the Tate. It seems blatant favouritism that works by their own trustees should be repeatedly selected,” said artist Charles Thompson. “And it goes without saying that having a painting exhibited at a prestigious national gallery can only enhance the artist’s earning power.” (more…)
Further extending its commitment to live performance work and new media, the Tate Modern has announced plans for additional performance space inside its museum spaces, as well as a website for the broadcasting of performance works live around the world. “It’s a completely new thing.” Says Dutch artist Nicoline van Harskamp. (more…)
Part of the 2013 London Design Festival, Alex de Rijke of dRMM Architects and Dean of Architecture at the Royal College of Art has created a complex, interlocking staircase installation on the grounds in front of the Tate Modern. Endless Stair will open on Friday, and is open to the public during the day. It closes on October 10th. (more…)
The Tate has purchased the instructions to artist Martin Creed’s notorious Work No. 227: The Lights Going On and Off. Fittingly titled, the 2001 work involves the constant flicking of light in a room from on to off and back again, and won Creed the Turner Prize when it was first unveiled, dispute vocal protests from tabloids and artists. “It is an important work. It is a sober minimalist piece in a long line of artists using every day materials for potent formal and psychological effect. It’s not easy viewing.” Says critic Louisa Buck.
Gary Hume, Blackbird (1998), all images courtesy Tate Britain
The Tate Britain is currently presenting an exhibition of works by British painter Gary Hume, created throughout his career. On display are 24 recent paintings, rare works never before seen in the UK, as well some of his most well-known pieces, offering a pointed view of his minimalist style and challenging aesthetic practice.
This fall, The Tate Britain will present an exhibition exploring iconoclasm in British art. Art under Attack: Histories of British Iconoclasm opens this October, and will include a number of works that have been damaged, defaced or otherwise physically attacked as part of an ideological agenda, including the Statue of the Dead Christ, a 16th Century statue that survived the purgations of religious reformers. “We wanted to look at things that had gathered significance over time and not something that happened to be topical.” Penelope Curtis, director of Tate Britain, said. (more…)
Israeli Shipping mogul Eyal Ofer has made a £10 million donation to the Tate Modern, bringing the museum within reach of its £215 million fundraising drive to fund a major expansion program. “I am delighted that the Eyal Ofer Family Foundation has chosen to make such a major contribution towards Tate Modern’s future.” Says Sir Nicholas Serota, the Tate’s current director. “It is exciting to see such outstanding philanthropy continuing from one generation to the next. The generosity of Eyal Ofer and his family will help to make Tate Modern a truly 21st-century museum.” (more…)
The Tate Modern has announced a selection of new exhibitions focusing on artists from the African continent. Featuring retrospectives of work by Sudan’s Ibrahim El-Salahi, 82, and the Lebanese artist Saloua Raouda Choucair, as well as a large-scale installation by Meschac Gaba (where the artist created his own, fictional museum), the move underlines the museum’s more global view towards the contemporary landscape. “These are all exhibitions that 20 or 30 years ago were quite impossible,” says Tate Modern director, Chris Dercon. “At some point it will be absolutely normal and absolutely necessary to have all these kinds of work, all these artists, together in one museum.” (more…)
The Tate Modern in London has announced its plans for a show of the final works completed by Henri Matisse. Slated for Spring of 2014, the show will feature 120 pieces by the artist, primarily using his large-scale, cut-out technique, including his famous Blue Nudes. “They are more like installations or environments than paintings; and they seem very contemporary now. Part of the point of the show is to reconsider them in this light,” said Tate curator Nicholas Cullinan. “They were a way of collapsing line and colour; at the same time they were a kind of sculpture – carving into pure colour.” (more…)
William Turnbull in 1956 via The Guardian
Artist William Turnbull has died at the age of 90. His diverse artistic production included abstract painting, figurative and minimalist metal sculpture. He was considered a forerunner to the Pop Art movement and was one the Abstract Expressionist’s earliest adopters. His work is part of major public collections including the Tate, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. and the Victoria and Albert Museum, among others. (more…)
David Hockney’s foundation now holds £84 million in assets. The art is expected to eventually be gifted to museums in the two regions where Hockney resides – the Tate and The Los Angeles County Museum of Art. (more…)
‬The Tate has revealed its 2013 program, which will include exhibitions of LS Lowry at Tate Britain, Marc Chagall in Liverpool, and a major Roy Lichtenstein at retrospective at The Tate Modern as well as shows of Gary Hume and Paul Klee.
