From its opening in 2000, Tate Modern arranged the Collection into four thematic groups, each of which spanned the twentieth century. From 2004 to 2006 some single galleries within each of the collection groupings have been refreshed by new monographic or thematic displays, presenting more of the collection in different ways or focusing on new acquisitions. Tate Audio tours were available in several languages and were sponsored by Bloomberg.
This temporary Turbine Hall display explored how a variety of sculptors represented the head over the last hundred years. Of all aspects of the human body explored by sculptors over time, the head has been the most frequent focus of attention. This display, which included over 40 'heads' from the Tate Collection, revealed the changing styles, techniques and attitudes which have been applied to representation of the human head. The works on display ranged from August Rodin's Balzac 1892, the epitome of a commemorative portrait bust, to Gilbert & George’s more recent video works which show how performance art has extended the language of portraiture into video. Other approaches include Alberto Giacometti's elongated and pock-marked busts and the radical fragmentation of the human anatomy in works by Jacob Epstein and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska. Head to Head revealed the changing styles, techniques and attitudes to representing the human head over the last hundred years.
This was a temporary display offering an informative insight into an inventive moment in 1950s Italian art. Alberto Burri, Lucio Fontana and Piero Manzoni all shared an interest in the physicality of raw materials. Burri worked with sacking, plastic and wood which he sewed and burned in order to accentuate their material qualities and physical properties, whilst Fontana introduced a tension to the surface by slashing his canvases. Manzoni responded to their initiatives by draining the colour from his works in order to present an object that was categorically itself. With the support of the Italian Embassy and the Italian Cultural Institute, London, many of these works were on extended loan to Tate Modern, making this a rare opportunity to see them displayed together.
This display focused on art which was condemned by the Nazis in their infamous Degenerate Art exhibition of 1937. The Nazis had denounced preceding avant-garde movements like Expressionism, Cubism and Dada as morally subversive, and attacked artistic experimentation for undermining the wholesome spirit of the German people. The regime plundered museums and public collections across Germany, seizing 16,000 works which were deemed morally and socially subversive, many of which were burnt. However 650 were displayed – alongside bitterly sarcastic commentaries – in the Degenerate Art exhibition, which was launched in Munich before beginning a nationwide tour. Works by key modernists who suffered this fate, including Edvard Munch’s The Sick Child 1907 and Max Beckmann’s Carnival 1920, were displayed within the Landscape/Matter/Environment suite.
Tate Modern Collection with UBS
Tate Multimedia sponsored by Bloomberg
Over a period of several months from autumn 2005 to spring 2006, Tate Modern completed a rehang of the works in its Collection displays for the first time since the gallery opened. The galleries on Level 3 reopened in December 2005, and the galleries on Level 5 were completed in May 2006. The four wings of galleries are now organised according to an entirely new model, with the central display in each wing focusing on a key period of innovation in twentieth-century art. These four periods are associated with:
Around these focal points a range of displays present dialogues between artists past and present, exploring how major movements relate to earlier artistic practice, and how later artists have responded to great innovations of twentieth-century art.
