© Lee Mawdsley
Discover artists from Tate's collection who have embraced new and unusual materials and methods
The Materials and Objects display looks at the inventive ways in which artists around the world use diverse materials.
Increasingly over the last hundred years, artists have challenged the idea that certain materials are unsuitable for art. Some employ industrial materials and methods, while others adapt craft skills, or put the throwaway products of consumer society to new uses.
See how two artists have used non-traditional art materials in very different ways
Find out how combining everyday objects and materials became a new technique for twentieth-century artists
In their series Light Sources and Sun Photographs, artists James Welling and Zoe Leonard ask questions about the nature of ...
See one of the most influential artworks of the twentieth century and investigate materials and objects
Discover how sculptors working in Japan, Europe, and the United States in the 1970s inspired and influenced each other
Intrigued by the unexpected and the inexplicable, Tunga explores the transformation of materials and the magical properties of hair
Indian artist Mrinalini Mukherjee transformed an everyday material, natural rope, into extraordinary sculptural forms
Marks on a blank wall gradually appear and disappear in Ansarinia’s video installation, Living Room 2005
Explore Abakanowicz’s stitched cloth sculptures inspired by biological systems, organic matter and regeneration
In the decades following the Second World War, find out how artists explored a number of radical approaches to painting
Many artists in the 1960s were using weaving and knotting to create innovative hangings and sculptures, integrating traditional craft techniques ...
What is art made of? Explore with the Tate Kids Media Team
