Tate Modern
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| Tate Modern | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Established | 2000 | ||
| Location | Bankside, London SE1, England | ||
| Visitor figures | 5,235,000 (06/07)[1] | ||
| Director | Vicente Todolí | ||
| Nearest tube station(s) | Blackfriars, Southwark | ||
| Website | www.tate.org.uk/modern | ||
| |||
The Tate Modern in London is Britain's national museum of international modern art and is, with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool, Tate St Ives, and Tate Online[2], part of the group now known simply as Tate.
The galleries are housed in the former Bankside Power Station, which was originally designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, the architect of Battersea Power Station, and built in two stages between 1947 and 1963. The power station closed in 1981. The building was converted by architects Herzog & de Meuron and contractors Carillion[3], after which it stood at 99m tall. The southern third of the building was retained by the French power company EDF Energy as an electrical substation (in 2006, the company released half of this holding).[4] Since the museum's opening on 12 May, 2000, it has become a very popular destination for Londoners and tourists. Entry to collection displays and some temporary exhibitions is free.
Contents |
[edit] Layout of a gallery
The Tate Collection is on display on levels three and five of the building, while level four houses large temporary exhibitions and a small exhibition space on level 2 houses work by contemporary artists. When the gallery opened in 2000, the collections were not displayed in chronological order but were rather arranged thematically into four broad groups: History/Memory/Society; Nude/Action/Body; Landscape/Matter/Environment; and Still Life/Object/Real Life. This was ostensibly because a chronological survey of the story of modern art along the lines of the Museum of Modern Art in New York would expose the large gaps in the collections, the result of the Tate's conservative acquisitions policy for the first half of the 20th century. The first rehang at Tate Modern opened in May 2006. It eschewed the thematic groupings in favour of focusing on pivotal moments of twentieth-century art, with further spaces allocated on levels 3 and 5 for shorter exhibitions. The layout is:
- Level 3 - Material Gestures
This focuses on abstraction, expressionism and abstract expressionism, featuring work by Claude Monet, Anish Kapoor, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko and Tacita Dean.[5]
- Level 3 - Poetry and Dream
- Level 5 - Idea and Object
This focuses on minimalism, conceptual art and constructivism with work by artists such as Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Sol LeWitt, Martin Creed[6] and Jenny Holzer.[7]
- Level 5 - States of Flux
This focuses on Cubism, Futurism, Vorticism and Pop Art,[8] containing work by artists such as Pablo Picasso,[9] Eugène Atget,[10] Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol.[11]
[edit] The Turbine Hall
The Turbine Hall (level 1), which once housed the electricity generators of the old power station, is five storeys tall with 3,400 square metres of floorspace.[12] It is used to display specially-commissioned work by contemporary artists, between October and March each year in a series sponsored by Unilever. This series was originally planned to last the gallery's first five years, but the popularity of the series has led to its extension until 2008.
The artists that have exhibited specially commissioned work in the turbine hall are:
- 2000 — Louise Bourgeois — Maman, I Do, I Undo, I Redo
- 2001 — Juan Muñoz — Double Bind
- 2002 — Anish Kapoor — Marsyas
- 2003 — Olafur Eliasson — The Weather Project
- 2004 — Bruce Nauman — Raw Materials
- 2005 — Rachel Whiteread — Embankment
- 2006 — Carsten Höller — Test Site
- 2007 — Doris Salcedo — Shibboleth
A popular approach to Tate Modern is via the Millennium Bridge from St Paul's Cathedral. The closest tube station is Southwark, although Waterloo station or Blackfriars tube station and a short walk over Blackfriars Bridge may be more convenient. The lampposts between Southwark tube station and the gallery are painted orange to show pedestrian visitors the way.
There is also a riverboat pier just outside the gallery called Bankside Pier, with connections to the Docklands and Greenwich via regular passenger boat services (commuter service) and the Tate to Tate service, which connects Tate Modern with Tate Britain via the London Eye.
[edit] New extension for 2012
A glass pyramid extension dedicated to photography, video, exhibitions and the community, on the south side of the building, also designed by Herzog & de Meuron, which will increase the display space by 60%, was granted planning permission on 27th March 2007.[13] This project will cost approx. £215 million and is scheduled to open in 2012, in time for the 2012 Olympic Games being held in the city.[14] The development is outlined at the subsite Transforming Tate Modern.
[edit] Gallery
St Paul's - Tate Modern ..JPG
Tate Modern from St Paul's Cathedral. The rebuilt Globe Theatre is in white, to the left. |
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Tate Modern in 2000 at the opening (and closing) of the Millennium Bridge. |
Tate Modern and Lamp.jpg
Tate Modern in the early morning, seen from near Blackfriars. |
Tate-modern-london.jpg
Tate Modern from the Millennium Bridge. |
Tate Modern Cranes.JPG
Construction cranes forming an honour guard. |
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A gallery in Tate Modern. |
TateMilleniumStPauls GS.jpg
A view of the Millennium Bridge and St Paul's Cathedral from the Tate Modern. |
Tate Modern.jpg
Chimney of Tate Modern. The Swiss Light at its top was designed by Michael Craig-Martin and the architects Herzog & de Meuron and was sponsored by the Swiss government. |
Tate.modern.turbine.hall.london.arp.jpg
The Turbine Hall. No art work was on display in the hall at the time (June 2005). |
Tatemodernpowerstation .jpg
Ólafur Elíasson's The Weather Project October 2003 - March 2004 |
Tate.modern.weather.project.jpg
Ólafur Elíasson's The Weather Project in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern. |
Whiteread tate 1.jpg
Rachel Whiteread's 2005 Embankment |
Test Site by Carsten Höller.jpg
Test Site by Carsten Höller (2006) |
Shibboleth Tate Modern.jpg
Shibboleth by Doris Salcedo (2007) |
[edit] References
- ^ From the Tate Report 2006/2007. Attendence figures on the Tate website
- ^ History and development Tate On-line
- ^ Tate Modern case study
- ^ "Tate Modern Announces Plans for an Annex", The New York Times, 26 July, 2006. Retrieved on 2006-07-26.
- ^ Tate Modern | Collection Displays | Level 3: Material es, Tate Online, 2006. URL accessed on 9 February, 2007.
- ^ Tate Modern | Collection Displays | Level 5: Idea and Object, Tate Online, 2006. URL accessed on 9 February, 2007.
- ^ Tate Modern | Collection Displays | Level 5: Idea and Object | Image/Text (Room 11), Tate Online, 2006. URL accessed on 9 February, 2007.
- ^ Tate Modern | Collection Displays | Level 5: States of FluxTate Online, 2006. URL accessed on 9 February, 2007.
- ^ Tate Modern | Collection Displays | Level 5: States of Flux | Cubism, Futurism, Vorticism (Room 2), Tate Online, 2006. URL accessed on 9 February, 2007.
- ^ Tate Modern | Collection Displays | Level 5: States of Flux | Machine Eye (Room 4)Tate Online, 2007. URL accessed on 9 February, 2007.
- ^ Tate Modern | Collection Displays | Level 5: States of Flux | Pop (Room 7)Tate Online, 2006. URL accessed on 9 February, 2007.
- ^ "Profile: Rachel Whiteread", Arts Unlimited, The Guardian, 7 October, 2005. Retrieved on 2006-04-20.
- ^ Tate modern | Transforming Tate Modern, Tate Online, 2006. URL accessed on 30 March, 2007.
- ^ Tate Modern's chaotic pyramid, The Times, 26 July, 2006. URL accessed on 26 July, 2006.
[edit] External links
- Tate Online - Official Tate website
- 'Tate Modern: a Year of Sweet Success' by Esther Leslie, in Radical Philosophy
Tate | |
|---|---|
| Galleries | Tate Britain · Tate Liverpool · Tate Modern · Tate St Ives · Barbara Hepworth Museum |
| Directors | Charles Holroyd (Keeper) · D.S. MacColl (Keeper) · J.B. Manson · John Rothenstein · Norman Reid · Alan Bowness · Nicholas Serota |
| Benefactors | Henry Tate · Hugh Lane · Joseph Duveen · Charles Clore · Outset Contemporary Art Fund |
| Collection | Equivalent VIII · The Kiss (Rodin sculpture) · The Lady of Shalott · Ophelia · Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion · Nocturne: Blue and Gold - Old Battersea Bridge · The Upper Room |
| Exhibitions | Turner Prize · List of Turner Prize winners and nominees · The Weather Project · Embankment · Test Site · Shibboleth |
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Categories: Art museums and galleries in London | British art | Modern art museums | Museums sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport | Buildings and structures in Southwark | Tall buildings and structures in London | Thames Path | Tate structures | Redevelopment projects in London | 1963 architecture | 2000 architecture | 2000 establishments
