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Tate Modern will open to the public in the transformed Bankside Power Station on 12 May 2000. It is one of the most significant of all the projects being created for the new Millennium in Britain. Standing at the heart of London, beside the Thames and linked to St Paul's Cathedral by the first new bridge to be built in central London since 1894, Tate Modern will become a symbol of London in the twenty-first century.
The new Gallery will take its place among the great modern art museums of the world. It will display the Tate Collection of international twentieth-century art, widely acknowledged to be one of the three or four most important in the world, featuring major works by the most influential artists of this century including Bourgeois, Picasso, Matisse, Mondrian, Duchamp, Dalí, Bacon, Giacometti, Pollock, Rothko and Warhol. It will also be a Gallery for the twenty-first century exhibiting new art as it is created and drawing in new audiences.
Tate Modern represents the most important investment in a new national arts institution in London since the completion of the National Theatre in 1976. The new Gallery will help regenerate a wide area of inner London, and help to reconfigure cultural tourism along the south bank of the Thames. It is estimated that it will bring direct economic benefits to London of between £50 million and £90 million each year and help create 2,400 new jobs.
The Bankside building will be a remarkable combination of the old and the new. The original Bankside Power Station - designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, architect of Liverpool Anglican Cathedral and designer of the red telephone box - is being converted by one of the leading architectural practices in Europe, the Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron, who won an international competition that attracted 148 entries.
Herzog & de Meuron's design respects the integrity of the imposing original building and its soaring central chimney. The most visible change to the building is a glass structure running the length of the roof, which will add two floors, provide natural light for the upper galleries, and give outstanding views of London. It will also be an important identifying feature of the building, especially when illuminated at night. Visitors will enter by a new main entrance at the west end of the building and descend down a ramp into the vast former turbine hall. The galleries for works of art will be arranged on three levels providing varying kinds of space for display. There are also spaces for educational activities, a film and seminar room, auditorium, members' rooms, a shop, a café, and a restaurant situated on Level 7 in the light box with panoramic views over the river.
The project costs are £134 million, which have been funded by grants of £50 million from the Millennium Commission and £6.2 million from the Arts Council, two of the distributors of money raised from the National Lottery. The government's urban regeneration agency, English Partnerships, together with the local authority, Southwark Council, has also made substantial investments. In addition, significant funds have been raised from individuals, charities and foundations.
In a radical break with the tradition of exhibiting works chronologically and by school, Tate Modern will show international modern art from the Collection in themed groups. These groups will provide a unique way of exploring and interpreting the Collection and create a setting for contemporary art.
This thematic approach will allow displays to cut across movements and disciplines, creating exciting juxtapositions between works not normally shown together, fusing the historic with the contemporary and painting and sculpture with film, video and photography. Familiar works such as Henri Matisse's Snail, Claude Monet's Waterlilies, Francis Bacon's Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, or Carl Andre's Equivalent VIII ('The Bricks') will be displayed in a new context. Visitors will also see less familiar works as many of the Collection's paintings, sculptures and unique works on paper have previously only been shown for short periods due to a lack of space. The rich holdings of contemporary work in the Collection will be given more exposure and over thirty living artists will be represented.
Each section will provide a broad and flexible forum within which different types of displays can be created, different interpretations explored, and works rotated. Within the themes, there will also be a number of monographic and documentary displays. Some rooms will explore the historical and artistic context of an individual work. These displays will change on a regular basis.
Tate Modern also aims to broaden the types of displays shown and place fine art in a wider context. For the first time displays will make fuller use of archival documentation, film and photography. For example, Tate Modern will open with an In Focus display centred on Picasso's Weeping Woman; the screening of Léger's film Ballet Mécanique; and a small exhibition of photographs from the Victoria & Albert Museum.
Earlier this year a historic agreement was made between the V&A and the Tate Gallery whereby works of art are loaned between the two museums on a regular basis. Tate Modern will open with a display of 1920s-1930s photographs from the V&A collection, including works by Henri Cartier-Bresson and Man Ray.
Since 1996 the Tate has been able to show works of art drawn from the Froehlich Foundation alongside works from its own collection. The Froehlich Foundation is based in Stuttgart, Germany, where the founders of the collection, Josef and Anna Froehlich, live. The collection comprises some 320 works by nine German and ten American artists. Tate Modern will open with significant and sustantial loans from the Froehlich Collection including works by Nauman, Warhol, Beuys and Flavin.
Level 4 of Tate Modern will be the venue for the Gallery's loan exhibition programme which begins in January 2001. These galleries will provide space for three major exhibitions every year as well as a series of smaller thematic or monographic shows. For the first time it will be possible for the UK to receive and initiate certain large-scale exhibitions for which, to date, there has been no suitable facility.
For the opening year Level 4 will be used to show some of the large-scale installation art acquired by the Tate in the last ten years, but rarely shown due to lack of space. Ranging from film and video to sculpture, the exhibition will include works by artists such as Matthew Barney, Rebecca Horn, Cornelia Parker and Bill Viola.
Tate Modern launched its pre-opening programme in September 1998. Projects have included the Tate Annual Event; Performing Buildings; the screening of Shirin Neshat's work Turbulent; Bankside Browser; and Mark Dion: Tate Thames Dig.
These projects have already established Tate Modern's artistic presence in the local community and created important links and partnerships with a wide variety of groups and organisations. The initiative will continue when Tate Modern opens including the fourth Tate Annual Event in Summer 2000.
The Unilever Series - Louise Bourgeois
12 May-October 2000
The first new work to be specially commissioned for Tate Modern is being sponsored by Unilever as part of The Unilever Series, a £1.25 million sponsorship commitment. Tate Modern will be able to commission a large-scale work for the Gallery's 500ft long x 100ft high Turbine Hall each year for the next five years. The French-born American sculptor Louise Bourgeois will create the inaugural work which will be unveiled in May 2000 when Tate Modern opens.
Louise Bourgeois is one of the world's foremost living artists. Born in 1911 in Paris, she studied under Léger, before moving to New York in 1938. A contemporary and colleague first of the Surrealists and then of the Abstract Expressionists, Louise Bourgeois's own work has always been at the forefront of new developments in art. Spanning continents and cultures her work is truly international.
Obsessed by memories of her own childhood in France, Bourgeois has always created deeply autobiographical work. In many different media, painting, printmaking, sculpture, installation, performance, she explores themes of identity, sex, love, alienation and death. In recent decades Bourgeois has created some of her most extraordinary and challenging works, most notably the group of Cells in which the viewer becomes part of a theatrical evocation of a psychological state. Her project for the Tate is her most ambitious work to date and is a natural development from the Cells.
Herzog & de Meuron
12 May-December 2000
At its opening in May, Tate Modern will include the first exhibition in Britain devoted to the work of Herzog & de Meuron, the Swiss based architects responsible for converting Bankside Power Station into Tate Modern.
Herzog & de Meuron's work will be celebrated through an exciting new form of exhibition. Their relationship with the building of Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, the original architect of Bankside Power Station, will be explored at ten locations situated throughout the building.
Setting out from a base station, focusing on a giant model of Bankside, visitors will embark on a journey of discovery and revelation as they are led to different places in the building. The stations are conceived and designed by Herzog and de Meuron to reveal unusual aspects of the building, both new and old, and interesting views, and to investigate their ideas, creative processes, and collaboration with the original architecture of Giles Gilbert Scott. The exhibition also draws upon models, plans, photography and video.
| Project Name: | Tate Modern |
| Address: | 25 Sumner Street London SE1 |
| Telephone: | 0171-887 8000 |
| Web site: | http://www.tate.org.uk |
| Nearest tube: | Southwark, Jubilee Line (opening November 1999) |
| Admission: | Free There may be charges for temporary exhibitions and special events. |
| Opening Hours: | Sun-Thurs: 10.00-18.00; Fri-Sat: 10.00-22.00 |
| Architects: | Herzog & de Meuron |
| Total project costs: | £134 million |
| Public opening date: | 12 May 2000 |
| Total internal floor area: | 34,000 square metres |
| Total display space: | 14,000 square metres |
| Restaurant: | On Level 7 to seat 160 |
| Café: | On Level 2 to seat 240 |
| Auditorium: | On Level 2 to seat 260 |
For Tate Britain: Ben Rawlingson Plant on 020 7887 8731, fax 020 7887 8729 or email ben.rawlingson.plant@tate.org.uk
For Tate Modern: Nadine Thompson on 020 7887 8701, fax 020 7887 8729 or email nadine.thompson@tate.org.uk
For Tate St Ives: Ina Cole on 01736 796543, fax 01736 794480 or email ina.cole@tate.org.uk
For Tate Liverpool: Catharine Braithwaite on 0151 709 3223 or email catharine.braithwaite@tate.org.uk
Please note that these contacts are only for press enquiries. For public enquiries see the Contact Us section of the website.