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Hogarth, My Dad 1700-2000
About the Harwood De Mongrel Tate Site
When asked to create this site by the Tate I found myself awkwardly
situated by my admiration for parts of the collection and my equal
disdain for the social values that framed the creation of much of
its art and of the collection itself. From a young age, like many
others, I had wanted to be an artist recognized in such palaces
of high taste, without knowing much of what this meant or of the
hypocrisy and contradictions it implied. The Tate, it seems to me
now, has at least two contradictory aspirations. It has to maintain
itself as an elite temple of the arts, reflecting the historical
descendant of the social values of that elite. Then there is the
Tate as a tool for democratic education: of the cultural values
that orientate the trajectory of the British at home; and in an
international, cultured context. This web-project hopefully takes
another position, somewhere in the broken links of the collection
- situated as if within the virtual representation of the Tate site
- but not spoiling the hallowed turf itself. From adolescence I
had visited the Tate, read the art books and generally pulled a
forelock in the direction of the cult of genius: on cue relegating
my own creativity to the Victorian image of the rabid dog. We know
well enough that this was how it was supposed to be. The historical
literature on 'rational recreations' states that, in reforming opinion,
museums were envisaged as a means of exposing the working classes
to the improving mental influence of middle class culture. I was
being inoculated for the cultural health of the nation.
Hogarth, Skin and Rope of the Thames 1700-2000
The democratic education of the mob was an attempt to addict them
to the aspirational tastefulness of Victorian Society. For the new
social elite, sharing what had previously been private, exposing
what had been concealed, became a totem of progressiveness. The
Tate, with a more or less free admission policy, surgically removed
the decadence and tyranny before offering the morsels of taste generated
under previous forms of social control. The museum provides a solution
to the social chaos of the street: a site where bodies, constantly
under surveillance, could be rendered docile through exposure to
Gainsborough, Turner, Hogarth etc. instead of the jailer's whip
and bludgeon. If the prison changed you through discipline and punishment,
then the museum was a way to show and tell so that you might look
and learn. Here, the purpose was not to know about people's culture
but to address people as the subjects of that culture; not to make
the population visible to power but to render power visible to the
people and, at the same time, to represent to them that power as
if it were their own. The museum became, and is still, a technical
solution to the problem of displaying wealth and power without the
attendant risks of social disorder.
The web-project was developed with the Tate by Mongrel.
The Structure of the Website
The Tate website is divided into the following sections. You can visit each by using the menus to the right. Once within a section, subheadings will appear in the menu. You can use these to explore further within that section. You can return to the main page for that section by clicking on the section name in the menu.
A brief description of each section follows:
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This section contains general information about the Tate, including opening hours, exhibition highlights for all the galleries, news and frequently asked questions. It also contains this site guide.
Information on how to support the Tate, including the Friends of the Tate and the American Fund.
If you can't find what you need on the website you can send your enquiries directly to us here, or just leave any comments you may have.
This section allows you to browse for postcards, books, posters and other Tate products. Once you have chosen something you can then order it online.
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Here you can browse the Tate's collections. You can choose from the General and Oppé Collections and see images and text about most Tate works.
Information about Tate Britain at Millbank, London. Details of how to get there, exhibitions, displays and events in the gallery.
This section contains information on the new gallery at Bankside, Tate Modern, which opened on 12 May 2000.
Information about Tate Liverpool. Changing displays, special exhibitions and other gallery information.
Information about Tate St Ives, Cornwall. Opening times, displays, events and information about the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden.
Details of the Partnership Scheme, Touring Exhibitions, collaborations with other National Collections and Links. |
Browser Type
The Tate site is optimised for Netscape Navigator 4.0 or above, or Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 or above. Some features of the site, which are not integral to the navigation or the overall design, utilise Javascript. These features will work on Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 and Javascript enabled Netscape Navigator 3.0 or above.
The site also uses Flash for the page headings and in other places. To see these you need the Flash plugin or QuickTime 4, otherwise a GIF will be used instead.
Browser Cache
The browser cache allows pages from the site to be stored on your hard disk. If you access a page or image you have already viewed, it is loaded from the cache rather than being downloaded from the website. This process allows the site to be displayed more quickly and efficiently. Therefore ensure that your browser cache is turned on as the Tate site is designed to make good use of this browser feature.
Monitor Settings
The Tate site is designed to look best on monitors set to at least
a 800 x 600 resolution and using more than 256 colours. You can
edit these settings in the control panel section of your computer.
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