The Tate Modern‘s Tanks, designed to hold commissions, acquisitions, and live performances, opened yesterday. “We are the first in the world with the ambition, the scale, and with the consistency to meet that increasing demand. The Tanks are a new instrument for the orchestra that is the Tate,” claims Sir Nicholas Serota, head of the Tate museums in the U.K.
The Financial Times sits down with Tate Modern director, Nicholas Serota, to discuss his perspective and vision for the most popular modern art museum in the world. “Only recently have I begun to understand what it felt like to be Picasso and Braque in 1907- absolutely determined to bury the previous century.”
Olafur Eliasson‘s ‘Little Sun’ newly installed at the Tate Modern uses solar powered, sunflower-shaped lamps and blackouts, and additionally address the social issues of energy use and expense. “Little Sun is a small work of art with a large reach,” says the Danish artist about his vision.
Protesters, outraged by BP’s sponsorship of the Tate Modern, carried a one and a half tonne wind turbine blade across London’s Millennium bridge to the gallery last Saturday morning. A speaker of the activist group, Sharon Palmer, stated that “in a time of climate crisis [visitors to the gallery] should not be made to feel that they’re legitimizing [oil firms].”
The Guardian speculates on the rise and evolution of performance art, placing current exhibitions in the context of past extremes. Looking to the upcoming live performances at the Tate Modern‘s Tanks, Adrian Searle comments that: “performance, in fact, is now where it’s at; it’s hard to think of much recent art that isn’t, at some level, performative.”
Herzog & de Meuron‘s converted oil tanks, located underneath the Tate Modern, to open as new three exhibition spaces on July 18, 2012. In a review of The Tanks, the Guardian comments that: “they have the confident geometry of things made not for appearances but for a substantial practical use, and their concrete surfaces have a raw force.”
‪‬Brice Marden‘s career discussed with the artist in Financial Times from the 1960s Lower East Side to current participation in American Artist Lecture Series at Tate Modern in London
Alighiero Boetti, Mappa (1971–72). All images via Tate Modern
Alighiero Boetti‘s retrospective, Game Plan is on view at London’s Tate Modern through May 27. Considered a pioneer of Italy’s Arte Povera movement in the 1960s, Boetti sought to transcend the traditional limits of high art. His efforts produced a broad mix of media, aligned by simple materials and often playful concepts, resonant in the title of the show. Tapestry, sculpture, painting, and carefully assembled collages made of parcels and postage comprise some of the varied array of work from his career spanning nearly three decades.
‪‬Tate Modern begins construction on new £215m extension project designed by architects Herzog & De Meuron with 75% of funds raised, beginning by converting 30-meter diameter oil tanks into dedicated live performance space
‪‬Elisabeth Murdoch reportedly donates “seven-figure sum” toward educational facilities in planned £215 million wing of Tate Modern
‪‬Damien Hirst’s ‘Hymn’ sculpture graffitied with simple ‘occupy’ word in blue spray paint outside the Tate Modern in London, The Occupied Times calling Hirst, “the man who has defined the capitalist approach to art more than any other”.
‪‬Magma Group protests Damien Hirst exhibition outside Tate Modern in London wearing clown costumes and holding signs, “Artists against flagrant self-promotion” [AO Newslink]
All photos on site for Art Observed by Caroline Claisse.
Damien Hirst‘s first official retrospective is on now at the Tate Modern in London. The retrospective spans two decades of the artist’s notoriously grand-scale artwork, featuring some 70 pieces. Often dealing with themes of life and death, Hirst’s works are known for their high prices and marketability. The show includes his spot paintings, pharmaceutical cabinets and vitrines, a diamond covered skull, as well as several large preserved animals and a room full of live butterflies.
The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (1991)
Yayoi Kusama, Self-Obliteration (1967). Images via Tate Modern.
Currently on view at the Tate Modern is the first major retrospective of Yayoi Kusama’s work in the UK. Covering a practice that has spanned nearly six decades, the fourteen-room exhibition reveals the wide range of the artist’s explorations into media and mediation. Including early manipulated photographs, soft sculptures, and immersive installations, as well as more recent paintings and sculptural works, the Tate’s retrospective moves viewers through one of the most individual and idiosyncratic practices to emerge from the 1960s New York art scene.
‪‬In anticipation of Damien Hirst’s upcoming Tate retrospective next month, writer Hari Krunzu lobs invectives at the artist in an editorial in the Guardian: “This isn’t just art that exists in the market, or is ‘about’ the market. This is art that is the market – a series of gestures that are made wholly or primarily to capture and embody financial value,” “Don’t just make money, be money: weightless, ubiquitous, infinitely circulating, immortal.” [AO Newslink]
‪Damien Hirst will open his own gallery on Newport Street in South London to showcase his collection of 2,000 works, which includes his own paintings, work by street artist Banksy, and Jeff Koons. The gallery plans to open in 2014, following his retrospective at the Tate Modern in London this coming April. [AO Newslink]
‪‬Tate Modern purchases 8 million hand-crafted porcelain sunflower seeds by Ai Weiwei, the ten tons are nearly one-tenth of the total 100 million seeds from original Tate Turbine Hall Unilever installation, price undisclosed [AO Newslink]
‪‬Tino Sehgal commissioned for 2012 Unilever Series at Tate Modern in conjunction with London 2012 Cultural Olympiad [AO Newslink]
Tate Modern’s Chief Curator Sheena Wagstaff moves to the Metropolitan Museum of Art Museum Board, in anticipation of appropriating the former Whitney Building on Madison Avenue for contemporary art exhibitions in 2015. [AO Newslink]
Installation view. All photos on site for Art Observed by Caroline Claisse.
The Tate Modern‘s exhibition ‘Panorama,’ featuring the work of living German artist Gerhard Richter, will be coming to an end after thee months. The exhibition pays homage to Richter’s variant inspirations, spanning 50 years of work and 14 rooms, providing an all-encompassing display of his oeuvre. Works include photo-realist paintings, landscapes, cloud, squeegee, and history paintings, with less conventionally displayed glass and mirror constructions from the 1980s, as well as his first Color Chart from 1966. One noted work, the 20-meter-long Stroke (on Red) (1980) was developed from a photograph of a brush stroke. This is its first exhibition outside of Germany.
‪‬Tacita Dean unveils ‘Film,’ a 35 mm film on a 13 meter tall screen as the 2011 Unilever series commission at the Tate Modern [AO Newslink]
Ed Ruscha, BLVD.-AVE.-ST. (2006). Via Tate Modern
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News that the Tate Modern extension may be delayed with 2nd phase to begin in 2016 due to lack of funds, but also, that the Tate family of galleries had its most successful year ever, making it the second most attended art institution behind the Louvre [AO Newslink]
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Installation view, Joan Miró: The Ladder of Escape (2011). All images via Tate Modern.
On view until September 11 at the Tate Modern in London, Joan Miró: The Ladder of Escape brings together work spanning six decades of the internationally renowned artist’s career. Organized with the help of the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, this major retrospective is a rare opportunity to see over 150 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper culled from collections around the world, as well as five of his large triptychs in their first ever coincident display. In addition to an exceptional viewing experience, the Tate has set out to provide a political context for Miró’s work and thereby shed light on the esteemed Surrealist’s oft-overlooked engagement with and dedication to the world around him.
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Joan Miró, Painting (1927).
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