The new Tate Modern will open with three weeks of live art, highlighting the place of performance in the 21st-century museum.
As part of the ongoing partnership BMW Tate Live, the museum will showcase from 17 June to 3 July the increasingly important role of live actions and participatory experiences for artists working today. The free BMW Tate Live programme will include live works acquired for Tate’s collection as well as new commissions by international artists, staged across the museum. Now in its fifth year, the partnership between Tate and BMW has enabled major large-scale events, live-streamed online performances, workshops and conferences since 2012. In 2017, Tate and BMW will continue to work together with an annual “live exhibition” held in the Tanks in Tate Modern.
Dr Ian Robertson, Member of the Board of Management of BMW AG, said: “We view BMW Tate Live with pride and together with Tate, we will continue to offer personal experiences to people who want to engage fully with the arts and give performance art a platform both in the museum and online. The project brings innovative artistic concepts to a broader public and makes art accessible in a new way. That is a great achievement and I would like to take this opportunity to thank Tate for working with us side by side; I look forward to an exciting future for our joint initiative.”
Sir Nicholas Serota, Director, Tate Modern said: “When we open the new Tate Modern in June 2016, we will be creating a new museum for the 21st century that reflects a truly international view of art. This exciting public building will add a new dimension to UK cultural life. It will give everyone an opportunity to see how the nation’s collection of modern and contemporary art has been transformed, and to experience what a powerful role art can play in all our lives.”
Frances Morris, Director, Tate Modern said: “Having enjoyed building Tate’s collection of international art, I can’t wait to see so many new works going on show at Tate Modern in our completely new displays. The dramatic and beautiful new spaces we have available – from the raw industrial Tanks to the refined galleries in the Switch House above – give us an opportunity to tell the story of modern art in fresh and exciting ways. I hope everyone who comes to see Tate Modern this summer will enjoy seeing some of their favourite works, some new surprises and some icons of the future.”
Since Tate Modern first opened in 2000, the national collection of modern and contemporary art has been transformed to reflect the many ways artists now work. This has included acquiring works that are performed and experienced in real time. In June 2016, visitors will encounter such works as they take place intermittently throughout Tate Modern’s new displays. Police officers on horseback will corral visitors in the Turbine Hall in Tania Bruguera’s provocative “Tatlin’s Whisper #5” (2008), while participants in David Lamelas’ “Time” (1970) will line-up on the entrance ramp and announce the time of day to each other in turn. In the Boiler House, the current Tate Modern building, Tino Sehgal’s “This is Propaganda” (2002) – in which someone who appears to be a gallery attendant suddenly begins to sing – will be found alongside the work of Joseph Beuys. In the Switch House, the new addition to the Tate Modern building, surrounded by the work of Lygia Clark, Mike Kelley and Bruce Nauman, Amalica Pica’s “Strangers” (2008) will be performed by two actors holding opposite ends of a string of bunting. Elsewhere, visitors will come across a mysterious queue of people that appears to lead nowhere: Roman Ondak’s “Good Feelings for Good Times” (2003).
The Tanks, the world’s first museum spaces dedicated to live art, film and installation will house three classic 1960s sculptures which radically challenged the relationship between art and audiences. Three variations on minimal cubes, by Robert Morris, Rasheed Araeen and Charlotte Posenenske will be brought back to life as sculptures to be walked around, entered or rearranged as originally intended by the artists half a century ago.
As part of the same display, The Tanks will also showcase two new performance commissions running daily through the opening three weeks. These commissions challenge the idea of the artwork as a material object and open up ideas of transformation and play. Tarek Atoui will present a new chapter in his ongoing work “The Reverse Collection”, consisting of ten specially-designed instruments played each day by a group of musicians. These performances will be recorded and layered over time to create an increasingly rich installation of sounds and objects. Alexandra Pirici and Manuel Pelmus will present “Public Collection Tate Modern” in which a group of five dancers perform live versions of familiar works of art as a repeated cycle. Acting out ‘equivalents’ of paintings, sculptures and installations as a series of poses, this work transforms the idea of a collection of artworks into a fleeting, ephemeral act.
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