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Tate Report 2004-2006

International Art

Our strategy has been to supplement, where we can, our holdings of major works of the period 1900–60, to develop in some depth specially targeted areas in the period 1960–80, and to continue to build a representative collection of contemporary and emerging art.

With the assistance of Tate Members, we acquired a major work by Francis Picabia. Picabia is best known for his involvement with the Dada movement but continued to challenge norms of art making through his career. Otaiti 1930 is a striking example of his series of paintings known as ‘transparencies’. At the same time, we were able to substantially develop our holdings of the Arte Povera movement, acquiring two major sculptures by Luciano Fabro and a group of six works by Michelangelo Pistoletto.

We were able to extend our holdings of post-1970 European art by acquiring works by such established figures as Jean-Marc Bustamante, Stanley Brouwn, André Cadere, Cristina Iglesias, Sigma Polke and Jan Vercruysse, most of whom were not previously represented in the Collection. With the support of the Mary Joy Thomson Bequest, we were able to turn our attention to recent Canadian art, and bought significant groups of works by Rodney Graham and Stan Douglas. Among important gifts and bequests to the international Collection was a group of works by the Belgian artist Marcel Mariën, generously gifted to Tate by the artist’s estate, and Louise Bourgeois’s Mamelles 1991, 2001, donated by the artist as part of the Building the Tate Collection campaign.

In the field of contemporary and emerging international art, we were pleased to acquire an important group of works by Francis Alÿs from the exhibition Seven Walks 2004–5, and Your Double-Lighthouse Projection 2002 a major installation by Olafur Eliasson, which was presented by Tate Members. Emerging international art has been supported by a range of special funds. Among the many acquisitions made possible by The Frieze Art Fund, for example, are works by artists from the former Eastern block including Pawel Althamer’s Self Portrait as a Business Man 2002 and Roman Ondák’s performance Good Feelings in Good Times 2003. The American Acquisitions Committee helped to bring a number of works into the Collection, including Christian Jankowski’s The Holy Artwork 2001 and Jorge Pardo’s Untitled 2003. The Latin American Acquisitions Committee acquired for Tate major installations such as Guillermo Kuitca’s Untitled 1992 and Carlos Garaicoa’s Letter to the Censors 2003.