Tania Bruguera at Tate Modern (Installation View), via Art Observed

Cuban artist and activist Tania Bruguera has been tapped for the most recent commission project at Tate Modern, which opened this past October during Frieze Week. The piece, which unifies disparate social threads under the museum roof, is a striking moment for the artist under the shadow of the nation’s Brexit negotiations. (more…)

Wolfgang Tillmans, paper drop (star) (2006) via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

For the past several years, Wolfgang Tillmans has worked at the forefront of contemporary artistic practice, moving relentlessly through a series of photography projects, videos, performances and other modes of operation that have established his work as a fitting reflection of modernity, exploring both cultural and natural phenomena as inextricably linked.  For his new exhibition at the Tate Modern, Tillmans continues his movement forward, using his work over the past decade as context to explore the world around us today.

Wolfgang Tillmans, (title?) FRAGILE 1983-1989, Arena Homme+, n°44 (2015) via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

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The Guardian writes on the ongoing complaints of a series of luxury condo residents living adjacent to the Tate’s Modern new Switch House extension, who claim their privacy is constantly being invaded by museum-goers looking out from the institution’s 10th floor viewing gallery.  ”I need to repeat the fact that clearly people purchasing those flats were in no doubt that Tate Modern was going to build its new Switch House building and the character and uses of that building were widely known,” says director Nicholas Serota.  “People purchased with their eyes wide open.” (more…)

The Art Newspaper speaks to Nicholas Serota about the opening of the new Tate Modern extension, and his vision in developing the museum since 1988, particularly his awarness of a need to expand even before the museum itself was complete.  “The Tate was struggling to discharge its responsibilities to British art and to international Modern art in a building that was much too small,” he says, “but we did an analysis pretty early on and we realized that there wasn’t going to be enough space to do justice to the international Modern collection and the collection of British art.” (more…)

Icelandic musicians Sigur Ros have announced an ambitious multimedia performance at the Tate Modern’s new building.  The work explores “the past, present and future of Tate Modern, the Bankside building that hosts it in London and its new extension.” (more…)

The Financial Times examines the “wow” factor, that has come to define the Tate Modern’s programming in the past decades, going deep into the museum’s curatorial focus and exploratory, often sensational exhibition plans to understand the museum’s impact on curatorial and exhibition practice in that time frame.  “Tate Modern’s thematic displays not only revolutionized how museums tell — or don’t — the history of art; they also promoted a reversal of power between artist and curator,” author Jackie Wullschlager writes.  “Chronological arrangements more or less protect art from curatorial interference. Thematic ones put a curator’s theoretical agenda first, prejudging and predetermining our responses, and selecting work by content or ideology rather than quality. (more…)

The Guardian takes a tour of the soon to open Tate Modern expansion, with high praise for its spacious design, management of exhibition areas, and views.  “We realized we were getting vulnerable in terms of what we could do on this site,” says director Nicholas Serota, explaining the £260m expansion, which has been in the works since the mid-2000s. “There were some substantial buildings arriving, so we would soon have a lot of neighbors who would oppose us doing anything of any scale.” (more…)

The Tate Modern is planning a landmark retrospective for David Hockney in 2017, one of the largest exhibitions the museum has ever opened.  “We’ve shaped the show and made a selection and then he’s made suggestions and we’ve shifted the emphasis a bit and there are some works he’s asked us to think about,” says co-curator Chris Stephens. (more…)

The Tate Modern has set the opening date for its new expansion at June 17th, announcing that its new space will launch with an exhibition of work by Louise Bourgeois. (more…)

Alexander Calder, Antennae with Red and Blue Dots (1953), © 2015 Calder Foundation, New York and DACS, London

Alexander Calder’s work as the originator of the mobile, and his free-flowing, languid techniques have long established him as a distinct pioneer of mid-20th Century sculpture.  His floating, kinetic sculptures and more grounded, static works were iconic elements of the post-war movements towards the abstract and expressive in sculptural practice.  Yet presentations and explorations of Calder’s work frequently obscure his early interest in the theatrical and performative, threads which were long instrumental to the artist’s practice, and to the development of much of his later work.  It’s these same threads that receive express emphasis in the Tate Modern’s Performing Sculpture, an exhibition of work culled from the length of Calder’s career, and which places his interests in performance, movement and time back into the proper context his later sculpture is so strongly rooted in.

Alexander Calder, Vertical Foliage (1941), Calder Foundation, New York © 2015 Calder Foundation, New York / DACS, London

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The Tate Modern has named Frances Morris as its new director.  Morris has worked with the Tate for the past 16 years, serving as head of displays from 2000 to 2006, when she was appointed director of collection for international art. (more…)

Artist Ed Ruscha has donated a collection of 18 new print works to the collection of the Tate Modern, and has promised to continue donating works from new series moving forward. “This is a rare and generous commitment, not to mention a wonderful Christmas present to the whole nation,” says the Tate’s Nicholas Serota. “These works on paper will be a wonderful resource for future exhbitions here in the UK.” (more…)

The Tate Modern has appointed two new curators, Clara Kim and Nancy Ireson.  Kim takes on the role of Daskalopoulos Senior Curator in International Art (Africa, Asia, and Middle East), with Ireson apointed as a curator of international art. (more…)

The New York Times profiles Sheena Wagstaff, The Met’s new head of Modern and Contemporary Art and former Tate Modern Chief Curator, in her mission to transform the museum’s offerings for more recent work, focused around its new exhibition space at the Breuer Building, former home to the Whitney.  “My work at the Tate Modern, along with my colleagues, too, was very much about re-addressing the Western canon, re-addressing the idea of what modernism actually means, and broadening and expanding that scope,” she says. (more…)

Artist Abraham Cruzvillegas has opened his new commission at the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, featuring an intermeshed series of planters filled with dirt from different parts of the city. The work allows visitors to spread seeds or see what is growing unplanned from the soil.  “I hope that something can happen in the worst of conditions. In our society, all these migrations, all these conflicts … how can we ask questions?” the artist says. (more…)

The Tate Modern has set June of 2016 as the opening date for its massive expansion project, and will embark on a massive rehang of the museum collection.  “There will be old friends and new friends – Pablo Picasso, Joseph Beuys and Mark Rothko will be joined by artists introduced to the public by Tate Modern in recent years,” says Nicholas Serota, “including Saloua Raouda Choucair, Meschac Gaba, Daidō Moriyama and Cildo Meireles.”  (more…)

Agnes Martin, Happy Holiday (1999)

The Tate Modern is currently hosting the first retrospective of Agnes Martin in twenty years on view through October 11th. The exhibition, planned to visit the Guggenheim in 2016, spans the versatile and extensive career of the artist, who remained loyal to her distinct pattern over many decades, while discovering and inventing new paths within a deliberately spare vocabulary.  (more…)

Barbara Hepworth, Pelagos (1946). All Images courtesy Tate London

Now through October 25^th, the Tate Modern in London is hosting an exhibition of Barbara Hepworth’s sculptural work. The Yorkshire-born artist is known for her elegant abstract forms, and is considered among the most important British modernist sculptors of her time.  Hepworth has continued to produce consistently throughout her lifetime, creating a wide array of structures and employing a variety of materials evocative of natural landscapes and relationships, two of her main points of inquiry.

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The Tate Modern has announced its schedule of exhibitions for 2016, including a major survey of the work of Georgia O’Keefe, as well as the first posthumous retrospective of the work of Robert Rauschenberg in the UK.  “There is next to no work by Georgia O’Keeffe anywhere in Europe,” says Achim Borchardt-Hume, the gallery’s director of exhibitions. “Unless you travel to the States and travel quite extensively across the States it is very difficult to form a coherent picture of her work.” (more…)

Marlene Dumas, The Image as Burden (1993) © Marlene Dumas

Currently on view at Tate Modern is Image as Burden, a retrospective looking at the career of the prolific South African painter Marlene Dumas. Adopting its title from an oil on canvas painting in which a male figure is depicted carrying a female figure, the retrospective, considered the most expansive survey of Dumas’ work in Europe so far, sheds a light on the exceptionally subliminal oeuvre of Dumas, who has, for the most part of her career, maintained a humble profile despite the scholarly and commercial recognition her work has achieved globally. (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…)

The Museum of Modern Art has announced that Stuart Corner, former Curator of Film at the Tate Modern, London since 2004, will take over as the Chief Curator of Media and Performance Art at the Museum.  Mr. Corner is also a co-curator for the 2014 Whitney Biennal.  “Artists working across time-based media—from performance to the moving image and all of the many permutations in between—continue to push and reshape artistic practice in fundamentally challenging and exciting ways,” say Mr. Comer. “I look forward to exploring this dynamic field and its rich history by continuing the development and exhibition of MoMA’s distinguished collection.” (more…)

In two weeks, The Tate Modern will open “Exposed,” a show of work focusing on voyeurism and surveillance in the practice of contemporary photography.  Pulling together 250 works from various artists and photographers, the show will examine the act and cultural impact of surveillance in the context of London’s position as the most surveilled city in the world. (more…)

Embracing performance and creative theatrics, a group of protestors converged on the Tate Modern yesterday, protesting the ongoing sponsorship of the institution by petroleum giant BP.  Chanting snippets from the corporation’s court proceedings over the Deepwater Horizon spill (yesterday was the disaster’s three-year anniversary), the group sought to underscore the corporation’s ties to the art community. “It’s not only BP that’s on trial for the devastation it has caused to Gulf Coast communities and ecosystems, it’s also Tate and other cultural institutions that provide BP with the social legitimacy to continue operating with such destructive consequences,” said performer Paul Brady.  “We’re making a performance that brings the BP trial into Tate Modern because BP’s arts sponsorship cannot be separated from the irrevocable damage it does to communities and the climate.” (more…)