Editor's Letter
A house of spaghetti and one made of cake; home as evoked by a childhood memory or as the site of invisible erotic labour. Ideas of what a home is, or could be, recur throughout this issue of Tate Etc., whether deeply rooted in experience or hovering somewhere in the realm of fantasy.
To mark the opening of the definitive exhibition of JMW Turner and John Constable at Tate Britain on the 250th anniversary of their births, writers Alexandra Harris and Susan Owens explore how both artists spent a lifetime studying and trying to capture the familiar British weather in paint, though often with contrasting results. As the writer GK Chesterton neatly put it in 1910: ‘The Weather sat to Constable. The Weather posed for Turner, and a deuce of a pose it was.’*
Elsewhere, Tate Modern’s chief curator, Catherine Wood, surveys the rising influence of grandmothers in contemporary art, as artists draw on the skills and knowledge passed down matrilineal lines, often in the home. Meanwhile, for Mohammed Z Rahman, the artist behind At Home, a new public mural in East London, the idea of home isn’t tied to a particular place but something created in community with other people.
Finally, just in time for the festive season, we reprint a playful feature written by Lee Miller for British Vogue in 1953, in which the photographer offers tips on how to palm off domestic tasks on your unsuspecting houseguests.
Make yourself at home,
Enrico Tassi
* thank you to Susan Owens for sharing this
