Sponsored by American Airlines
Foundation Supporter: The Henry Luce Foundation
Media partner The Sunday Times
Edward Hopper is considered to be one of America's greatest modern painters.
This retrospective exhibition was the first major Hopper show to take
place in the UK for over twenty years and presented most of his most
iconic images including Nighthawks 1942 and Automat
1927. Hopper's enduring popularity stems from his ability to stage scenes
from everyday life in a way which also addresses universal concerns.
His contemplative studies of modern life, captured within the stark
interiors of automats, motel rooms, diners and movie theatres have a
timeless quality, transcending mid-century filmic and literary references
to become profound statements about the human condition. Hopper’s
paintings are flooded with penetrating beams of sun or moonlight which
expose isolated figures in sparsely furnished rooms, absorbed in themselves
and detached from their world: portraits of aloneness. The exhibition
explored another theme of Hopper's work through his use of American
vernacular architecture, often cropped in a way to increase psychological
tension and heighten the feeling of isolation. This exhibition featured
70 works ranging from his early Parisian subjects to the poignant portraits
of American life created more than 60 years later.
The exhibition was curated by Sheena Wagstaff assisted by Maeve Polkinhorn.
Supported by Tate Members
With support from The Ministry of the Flemish Community
Media partner The Times
An exhibition by Tate Modern, London and K21, Düsseldorf
Luc Tuymans is one of the most highly regarded and influential painters of his generation, and this exhibition was the first major presentation of his work in the UK. Tuymans’s subtle and beguiling work is noted for a feeling of suppressed violence and impending menace, hinting at the hidden terrors that lurk beneath the surface of ordinary, everyday life. Through the use of a restricted palette of muted colours or even toxically bright ones, the artist imbues his works with a powerful sense of history and memory. Each painting within the exhibition acted as a form of remembrance, via the objects, materials and interiors that act as silent witness or oblique reference to heinous, momentous or deeply banal events. The exhibition featured over 70 works and gave a comprehensive overview of Tuymans' artistic output over the last twenty years, as well as new works which had never been displayed before.
The exhibition was curated by Emma Dexter and Julian Heynan (external curator), assisted by Juliet Bingham.
Sponsored by Varilux
Media partner The Daily Telegraph
Presenting works by leading contemporary artists working with film and video, this ground-breaking exhibition was the first to be devoted to the moving image at Tate Modern. The exhibiting artists were Francis Alÿs, Fikret Atay, Yael Bartana, Yang Fudong, Fiona Tan, Jeroen de Rijke and Willem de Rooij, Anri Sala, Bojan Sarcevic and Wolfgang Staehle. The works on display attempted to defy common perceptions of time, through the portrayal of scenes from daily life recorded in real-time or at a slower pace. This more naturalistic representation of events enabled audiences to see intriguing and significant details which are often overlooked in the highly edited, accelerated rendering of time which has become the norm in our commercial MTV-watching culture. The featured artists came from several countries and thus the works reflected upon daily life and events taking place in a variety of time zones. With settings as diverse as China, Turkey, Israel and Mexico, the works on display offered a fascinating insight into a myriad of different cultures and demonstrated that different time zones have very different stories to tell.
The exhibition was curated by Jessica Morgan and Gregor Muir, assisted by Maeve Polkinhorn.
Sponsored by Deutsche Börse Group
Media partner: The Daily Telegraph
Robert Frank is one of the world’s most influential photographers.
For more than 50 years, he has broken the rules of photography and filmmaking,
challenging the boundaries between the still and the moving image. This
exhibition was the first major exploration of his work to take place
in the UK. From 1949 onwards Frank started to take pictures which reflected
his search for artistic freedom, travelling to locations in South America
and Europe to shoot stories that revolutionised the expressive potential
of the medium. Several of these ground-breaking photographic series
were displayed in the exhibition. In 1954 Frank began a road-trip across
the United States. The resulting book The Americans radically
changed the language of photographic narrative. Highlights of the project
were the series Chicago 1956, which portrays this vibrant city
in the midst of the congressional elections, and Detroit 1955,
which offers a fascinating insight into the daily lives of people working
on one of Ford’s infamous assembly lines. This exhibition featured
over 150 photographs and three of Frank’s films and was a unique
opportunity to explore the work of one of photography’s greatest
pioneers.
The exhibition was curated by Vicente Todolí, assisted by Ann Coxon.
Supported by Tate International Council
Media partner The Independent
Organised by The Menil Collection, Houston in collaboration with Tate
Modern.
German artist Joseph Beuys gained international recognition in the 1960s, 70s and 80s due to his charismatic presence and singular artistic style, and is now considered one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century. This was the first major exhibition of his work to be held in the UK. Joseph Beuys: Actions, Vitrines, Environments focused on three areas of his work which became increasingly central to his artistic output during the second half of his career. Alongside the blackboards on which he recorded his lectures, Beuys’s captivating ‘actions’ and performances were explored through photographic and video records of these momentous occasions. Also included were several vitrines, in which Beuys used the display cases commonly found in museums to present small objects which he considered to be socially and artistically significant. The exhibition also presented several remarkable room-size installations, including Beuys’s seminal work, The Pack 1969. Comprised of a broken-down Volkswagen van from which cascade twenty-four sledges with a pack of felt and fat attached to each, The Pack explores the concept of human survival in the face of technological failure. No ordinary sculptor, Beuys was a shaman, showman, teacher and tireless debater who evolved a concept of the artist as an agitator for social change. In the 1970s he became increasingly active in politics campaigning for educational reform, grassroots democracy and the Green Party. Believing that everyone could participate creatively in reshaping society, Beuys advocated a theory of ‘social sculpture – society as artwork’. For Beuys ‘permanent conference’, an ongoing debate and exchange of ideas, was necessary in order to stimulate democratic thought.
The exhibition was curated by Sean Rainbird assisted by Juliet Bingham.
Supported by Tate Members
Media partner The Independent
In association with the National Theatre.
Celebrated as a prolific writer of plays, novels and poetry, August Strindberg was also a radical painter for his time. This was the first major exhibition held in the UK to explore his paintings and photographs. Strindberg believed that chance played a vital role in painting, allowing the process of applying paint to create a simple composition and thus determine the final image. Consequently his paintings appear extraordinarily abstract for works produced at the turn of the last century. This approach to creative expression was later used by artists involved in artistic movements such as Surrealism and Expressionism. Strindberg saw the awe-inspiring landscape outside his native Stockholm as a metaphor for his emotions and painted the rocks, waves and ever-changing skies in a vast array of compositions, colour palettes and moods. His paintings often feature solitary man-made objects encircled by turbulent seas and dark skies which Strindberg saw as an analogy for his position as an artist pushing forward against an uncertain frontier. This ground-breaking exhibition included over sixty paintings as well as thirty photographs, illustrated manuscripts, drawings and sculptures.
The exhibition was curated by Olle Granath (external curator) and Helen Sainsbury, assisted by Vincent Honoré.
Supported by individual American Patrons and Exhibition Patrons of
Tate
Media partner The Sunday Times
This exhibition brought together the work of international artists who experimented with aesthetic ‘systems’ in the 1960s and 1970s. Fluxus and Minimalism had become the dominant artistic movements of the early 1960s, but towards the end of the decade artists began to engage directly with the political and social context in which they were working. This led to innovative approaches that directly drew upon the outside world, the human figure and the surrounding environment. This radical repositioning resulted in a series of diverse experiments in dance, painting, photography, installation, film and video. The exhibition began by exploring how artists reacted to and rebelled against the minimalist cube, and then went on to survey how artists used systems to rethink the making of art. Included were key installations from the period, including Hans Haacke’s Condensation Cube 1963, Hélio Oititcica’s Projeto Filtro – Para Vergara New York 1972, Gordon Matta-Clark’s collaborative work Anarchitecture 1974, and Mel Bochner’s Measurement: Room 1969. The exhibition also included works by Bruce Nauman, Andy Warhol, Donald Judd, Eva Hesse, Gerhard Richter, Sol LeWitt, and Gilbert & George, amongst many others.
The exhibition was curated by Donna de Salvo and organised by Victoria Walsh, assisted by Patricia Lee and Michele Smith.
Sponsored by HSBC
With support from México Tourism Board
Media partner The Times
This was the first major solo Frida Kahlo exhibition to take place in the UK. The majority of the 80 works on display travelled from Mexico and the USA, making this a rare opportunity to see so many of her poignantly beautiful works displayed together. Kahlo took up painting when confined to her bed following a near-fatal bus crash. The first of two accidents in her life, Kahlo described the second as being her tempestuous marriage to the notable Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. These two events inspired her to create compellingly raw and emotive self-portraits which expressed her isolation and physical pain, as well as her impassioned and unconquerable spirit. The exhibition also explored and revealed the lesser known aspects of her work, including her powerful political insights into the tensions within post-revolutionary Mexican society, the plight of Mexico’s poor, and her country’s relationship with its neighbour, the USA.
The exhibition was curated by Emma Dexter and Tanya Barson, assisted by Cliff Lauson.
Supported by Tate Members
Media partner The Guardian
Supported by the Canadian High Commission, London
An exhibition by Schaulager Basel in collaboration with Tate Modern,
London
This exhibition presented an overview of Jeff Wall’s career from the late 1970s to the present. On show were 50 key works, many of which have become icons of contemporary photography, including Morning Cleaning, Mies van der Rohe Foundation, Barcelona 1999, and A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai) 1993. It also included new work made especially for the exhibition. Canadian artist Wall has made a significant contribution to the medium of photography, drawing upon the history of painting and that of documentary photography, as well as cinematic sources. Known for his signature large-sized transparencies mounted in lighted display cases, Wall’s lightboxes combine the seductive appeal of the cinema screen with the physical presence of minimalist sculpture. This was the first major Wall retrospective to take place in the UK.
The exhibition was curated by Sheena Wagstaff, assisted by Vincent Honoré.
Sponsored by Aviva
Exhibition organised by Tate Modern and Réunion des musées
nationaux and Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Henri Rousseau created some of the most popular and memorable paintings of the modern era. This was the first exhibition of his work to be held in the UK for 80 years. Rousseau is celebrated for his visionary jungle paintings which captivate the viewer with the lushness of their plant and animal life. Extraordinarily, the artist never travelled outside of France. His exotic jungle scenes, painted with such evocative detail and precision, are thus the fantasies of a city dweller, constructed from visits to the zoo and botanical gardens, from postcards, books and from Rousseau’s vivid imagination. These jungles have intrigued people for decades, offering a dream of escape from humdrum reality to a savage and yet enchanting realm. Rousseau’s unique vision was celebrated by his modernist contemporaries like Pablo Picasso and the surrealists René Magritte and Max Ernst, who saw his work as opening up new realms of artistic possibility. They were particularly fascinated by his bold, primitive style and the dream-like nature of his paintings. For a customs official who was self-taught and only took up painting full-time in retirement, this was an extraordinary accomplishment.
The exhibition was curated by Professor Christopher Green (external curator) and Frances Morris, assisted by Juliet Bingham.
Sponsored by Tate International Council
Media partner: The Observer
Exhibition organised in collaboration with K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen,
Dusseldorf.
This exhibition was the first Martin Kippenberger retrospective to take place in the UK. Kippenberger was a master appropriator who consistently absorbed, challenged and transformed the world around him. He was also incredibly aware of the importance of self-publicity and tirelessly controlled his own image, whilst self-consciously reinventing himself and his art. His aim to undermine the myth of the artist is apparent in works like the Lieber Maler, male mir [Dear Painter, Paint For Me] series, in which he commissioned a sign painter to paint images from photographs he had chosen. In response to some bad critical reviews, he produced a series of sculptures of himself standing in a corner, head bowed. Such works are typical of Kippenberger’s ability to be irreverent and comical, whilst making serious statements about the art world and his own, often troubled, personal life. Included in the exhibition were 40 paintings, four large installations, thirteen sculptures and numerous works on paper. Many of the works were on loan from private lenders, making this a rare opportunity to see so much of Kippenberger’s work on public display.
The exhibition was curated by Jessica Morgan, assisted by Ben Borthwick.
Sponsored by BMW
This exhibition offered an opportunity to rediscover two major figures of twentieth-century art and design. The careers of German-born Josef Albers and Hungarian-born László Moholy-Nagy overlapped for five years when both worked at the legendary Bauhaus school in Weimar and Dessau. This exhibition began by exploring how both artists developed a radical abstract language which condensed art to its fundamental elements of line, colour, texture, light and form. It also offered an insight into other concerns central to their radical creative visions. Both believed in the power of experimentation, in the subversion of traditional boundaries between high and applied art and that creativity could play an important role in bringing about social change. The exhibition then followed their separate paths after the rise of National Socialism forced both artists into exile in the United States. Albers taught at Black Mountain College, and Moholy-Nagy went on to teach at The New Bauhaus in Chicago before founding The Institute of Design there. Both continued to push artistic conventions and were instrumental in the transition of ground-breaking modernist ideas from Europe to the ‘New World’. On display were over three hundred works in media ranging from painting, photography and photomontage to graphic and furniture design as well as pioneering experiments in moving sculpture.
The exhibition was curated by Achim Borchardt-Hume, assisted by Maeve Polkinhorn.
