Hyundai Commission: El Anatsui: Behind the Red Moon, Installation View, Photo © Tate (Joe Humphrys).
The Hyundai Tate Partnership
The Hyundai Commission is a unique platform for art. It is an opportunity for some of the world’s most exciting artists to take their ideas to a new level, to realise their ambitions on a monumental architectural scale, and to situate their work within a vibrant public space. Each year, this transformation of the Turbine Hall is a cornerstone of Tate Modern’s programme and of the international art world calendar.
Karin Hinsdbo, Director of Tate Modern
Established in 2014 with Hyundai Motor’s support of Tate’s major acquisition of works by the renowned South Korean artist, Nam June Paik, the long-term partnership between Hyundai Motor and Tate is a globally celebrated and hugely successful arts collaboration founded on a shared commitment to world-wide innovation, pursuing and celebrating some of the world’s most ambitious and risk-taking art. The acquisition of Nam June Paik’s work dramatically diversified Tate’s collection, improving its holdings of art from Asia. This then led onto the first Hyundai Commission being programmed in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall in 2015; the start of this annual world-leading artistic commission.
Installation view of Hyundai Commission: Anicka Yi at Tate Modern, October 2021. Photo by Will Burrard Lucas
The Hyundai Commission
Since Tate Modern opened in 2000, the Turbine Hall has hosted some of the world’s most memorable and acclaimed works of contemporary art, reaching an audience of millions each year. In 2014, Hyundai Motor committed eleven years of support for Tate. This agreement formed part of the longest initial commitment from a corporate partner in Tate’s history.
Each year, the annual Hyundai Commission has constituted a stage for international artists to present new, site-specific installations in the iconic Turbine Hall. The ways in which the Hyundai Commission artists have interpreted the vast industrial space has revolutionised public perceptions of art in the twenty-first century and continues to creatively bring forward many of today’s most pressing sociopolitical and existential concerns.
Artists who have created works in response to the unique space include:
The Hyundai Commission is Tate Modern’s flagship annual commission. Opening each year at the start of Frieze week, it is one of the most important annual moments in Tate’s calendar. The Hyundai Commission disrupts the space of the gallery and invites participation, awe and surprise from Tate’s audiences. It serves as an amplification of Tate’s priorities in terms of artistic research and direction and is emblematic our mission to put artists – and our audiences – at the heart of everything we do.
