Rivane Neuenschwander, Cao Guimarães, Quarta-Feira de Cinzas / Epilogue 2006. Tate. © Rivane Neuenschwander and Cao Guimarães.
What colours do you associate with festivals or celebrations?
The Start display shows art from a range of countries, cultures and times, linked by a focus on colour. The film in this first room shows red and black ants carry coloured confetti across the floor of the Brazilian rainforest. The brightly coloured discs contrast with the brown tones of the earth.
The title of the film translates as ‘Ash Wednesday’, the day marking the start of the Christian season of Lent. This is a forty-day period of fasting before Easter. It is also the last day of the Brazilian carnival festival, when colourful confetti is thrown in the streets. Perhaps the ants are tidying up after the end of the festival.
The film tries to capture the mood of the end of the festival, when there is a certain melancholy after the days of madness and excess.
Rivane Neuenschwander.
Andy Warhol, Marilyn Diptych 1962
In August 1962, Andy Warhol started experimenting with screenprints in his New York studio. When the actor Marilyn Monroe died the same month, Warhol was shocked by her death. He found a publicity photo of Monroe from the 1953 film Niagara, taken by the photographer Gene Kornman. Cropping her face, Warhol made a series of graphic screenprints based on the portrait. He painted over some of them by hand, then reprinted Monroe’s face on top of the colour. Originally two separate pieces, Marilyn Diptych was first purchased by art collectors Burton and Emily Tremaine. Together, the mask-like depictions of Monroe could hint at the experiences of a life led inside and outside the celebrity spotlight.
Gallery label, April 2025
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artworks in Colour
Art in this room
Andy Warhol
Marilyn Diptych
1962