Tate
Britain 2000
London,
England
Note: See the
upcoming Newsletter News Archive for more information about the major expansion of the
Tate Gallery.
In 2000 Tate
Britain celebrates the beginning of a new era in the Tate's history
with a series of themed galleries and special displays. Major works of
British art from the sixteenth century to the present day will be seen
alongside one another, in displays that will allow visitors to see the
full richness and energy of the nation's artistic achievement over the
last five centuries. There will be in-focus galleries, monographic
displays and groups of thematically linked rooms exploring British art
across history.
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The Collection:
New
British Art 2000
6 July-24 September 2000
William
Blake
9 November 2000-11 February 2001
Mona
Hatoum
24 March-9 July 2000
Romantic
Landscape: The Norwich School of Painters 1803-1833
24 March-17 September 2000
The
Turner Prize Exhibition 2000
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Family and
Society
The Reformation in the sixteenth century, and the resulting decline of
religious art, made portraiture and domestic imagery the dominant
forms in British painting until the nineteenth century. The complex
changing codes governing the way people were presented in portraiture
will be evident in a gallery of Portraits by Gheeraedts, Van Dyck,
Hogarth and Reynolds, shown alongside strikingly different images from
the modern era by Rossetti, Sickert and Bacon. Home Life will show the
variety of domestic images over the centuries, from the charming yet
faintly sinister dynastic elegy of David Des Granges's Saltonstall
Family (1636-37) to the commodified modern housewife of Richard
Hamilton's $he (1958-61). In The City, the poverty and pleasure,
humour and loneliness of urban society in Britain will be traced in
works by Frith, Lowry and Gilbert & George.
Literature and
Fantasy
During much of the twentieth century 'literary' has been a derogatory
term when applied to art. In recent years, however, this bias has been
overturned and the relationship between words and images in British
art has been re-examined, revealing literature as a source of enormous
power and significance. In The Inspiration of Literature, works by
Barry, Fuseli, Millais, Waterhouse and Kitaj will reveal this uniquely
rich thread in the visual culture of Britain. The eccentric and
spiritual side of British art will be explored in Fantastic Art and
Visions, where major visionary works by Blake, Samuel Palmer and
Stanley Spencer will be seen together. Home and Abroad
Landscape painting is the cornerstone of the visual arts tradition in
Britain. It lies at the heart of myths of national identity, and has
dominated perceptions of British art since the eighteenth century. In
British Landscape works by Siberechts, Stubbs, Gainsborough, Turner,
Nash, and Lanyon, reveal an extraordinary range of responses to the
land, sea and sky of the British Isles, one of the most mythologised
landscapes in the world. In contrast, Artists Abroad will show British
artists' responses to landscapes and cultures around the world
revealing the international context of British art. Images of War will
focus on artists' different visions of international conflict, from
eighteenth-century wars with France to the twentieth century's two
World Wars and beyond.
Artists and
Models
Two rooms will confront our myths about artists and their subjects.
Painters in Focus will present portraits of artists from the
eighteenth century to today, including several major works by Joshua
Reynolds and Stanley Spencer. The full range of roles played by
British artists, whether as establishment figures or 'outsiders', will
be brought to life. Conversely, a gallery of Nudes will explore the
complex and tense relationships between artists and their models,
through vividly contrasting images of the naked body by artists such
as Lucian Freud, Gwen John and Frederic, Lord Leighton.
British Artists
in Focus
Around the galleries, a series of single room displays will be
dedicated to the most famous British artists, including David Hockney,
William Blake and Thomas Gainsborough. A special display of Constable
will combine a generous loan of fourteen works from the Victoria and
Albert Museum, including the famous full-scale sketch for The Hay-Wain
(1820), with a selection from the Tate's own collection, showing in
depth this great British artist's unique vision of the English
landscape. From July, an in-focus display will put William Hogarth's
neglected masterpiece, Sigismunda (1759), into its rich historical
context.
Hogarth's 'O
The Roast Beef of Old England'
A display centred on Hogarth's celebrated image of anti-French
sentiment, 'O the Roast Beef of Old England ('The Gate of Calais'),
1748, will bring together paintings, prints and caricatures as part of
Tate Britain's commitment to unravel the meanings of familiar works
and to examine the ways art has helped to mirror and shape ideas of
national identity.
Tate 2000 - Major Exhibitions
New
British Art 2000
6 July-24 September 2000
Admission: £5.50 (concessions £4.00)
New British Art 2000 is the first in a series of major exhibitions of
contemporary art, to be held every three years at Tate Britain. At the
turn of the twenty-first century British contemporary art has never
had such a high profile. Exhibitions in the New British Art series
will provide a bold and dynamic interpretation of current work. Each
exhibition will be selected around a central idea, bringing together a
range of works by artists of several generations.
The first, New
British Art 2000, will be curated by Charles Esche, Research Fellow at
Edinburgh College of Art and co-director of the Modern Institute,
Scotland, and Virginia Button, Curator, Tate Britain. Including recent
work by up to twenty artists and using all twenty-one modules of the
Gallery's 1979 extension, it will be the largest exhibition of
contemporary work ever held at the Tate.
William
Blake
9 November 2000-11 February 2001
Admission: £7.50 (concessions £5.00)
This exhibition will take a fresh, bold look at the unique and
innovative Romantic British artist and poet, William Blake
(1757-1827). This will be the first major exhibition of Blake's work
in more than twenty years and will include more than 200 works drawn
from public and private collections throughout the world. The
exhibition will offer a clear and informative overview of his life and
work, putting him in context with the political and social upheavals
of his time and bringing the symbolism of such popular works as
Jerusalem, The Ghost of a Flea and The Tyger to life.
The exhibition
will contain four sections, each of which will look at a facet of
Blake's art and life. One of these sections Chambers of the
Imagination, will be an exploration of Blake's thinking as a visionary
artist. Another looks at the artist's years in Lambeth during the
1790s. This was the time of the French Revolution and the rise of
radicalism in Britain. Along with this came Blake's pioneering
development of a form of print-making and book-making through which he
could express and circulate his own revolutionary thoughts. One
special feature of this part of the show will be a 're-creation' of
Blake's studio which, through the display of engraving tools and
aspects of his engraving process, will explain the very practical
skills which Blake had mastered in order to be his own man.
The curators
for the exhibition are Robin Hamlyn, Curator, Tate Collections and
Michael Phillips, art historian and lecturer, University of York.
Additional
Exhibitions 2000
Mona
Hatoum
24 March-9 July 2000
Duveen Sculpture Gallery
The celebrated British artist Mona Hatoum has created a spectacular
new group of works for the Tate's Duveen Galleries in the first of a
new series of annual sculpture exhibitions. Responding directly to the
architecture and scale of the galleries, these works reflect her
interest in using household objects as a means of exploring concepts
of domestic comfort and efficiency. For example, a mechanical device
for slicing or shedding vegetables will be dramatically enlarged. The
artist's transformation of this and other domestic accoutrements
render them beautiful, yet malevolent, and capable of inflicting pain
or even death.
A leading
contemporary British artist, since the early 1980s Mona Hatoum has
used performance, video, sculpture and installation to explore
political and aesthetic issues. Her work addresses themes such as the
mechanisms of power and oppression, as well as the fragility and
strengths of the human condition.
Romantic
Landscape: The Norwich School of Painters 1803-1833
24 March-17 September 2000
The early nineteenth century was a golden age of landscape painting in
Britain, presided over by the twin geniuses of Turner and Constable.
But there was much vibrant work produced beyond the London-based art
world. In East Anglia the Norwich School recorded the beauty and life
of the region: celebrated for its open skies, towns, churches and
waterways.
As a result of
its refurbishment next year, the Norwich Castle Museum has been able
to lend Tate Britain a selection of its finest Norwich School works,
many of which have never previously left the city. The exhibition
will provide an unrepeatable opportunity to see the School's
distinctive view of landscape in all its aspects, including major
watercolours and paintings by John Sell Cotman, John Crome, and a host
of exceptional works by lesser-known figures. Together with special
displays of Turner and Constable, Romantic Landscape will offer the
richest display of the great period of British landscape painting seen
in London for many years.
The
Turner Prize Exhibition 2000
The annual
Turner Prize exhibition will continue to be held at Tate Britain.
Tate
Britain 2000
