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Tate Britain Exhibition

Patrick Keiller The Robinson Institute Tate Britain Commission 2012

27 March – 14 October 2012
Patrick Keiller at Tate Britain
Patrick Keiller, The Robinson Institute 2012

Patrick Keiller, The Robinson Institute 2012

Patrick Keiller, The Robinson Institute 2012

Patrick Keiller, The Robinson Institute 2012

Patrick Keiller, The Robinson Institute 2012

Patrick Keiller, The Robinson Institute 2012

Patrick Keiller, The Robinson Institute 2012

Patrick Keiller, The Robinson Institute 2012

Patrick Keiller, The Robinson Institute 2012

Patrick Keiller, The Robinson Institute 2012

Patrick Keiller’s The Robinson Institute is unveiled at Tate Britain on 27 March – the first Tate Britain Commission made in response to Tate’s Collection of British and international art, supported by Sotheby’s. The Robinson Institute is an exhibition that considers the origins of the current economic crisis. Throughout The Robinson Institute, images of landmarks and locations in the English landscape are employed to illustrate the development of capitalism.


Keiller is best known for his series of film essays, London 1994, Robinson in Space 1997 and Robinson in Ruins 2010 in which a fictional, unseen scholar Robinson undertakes exploratory journeys around England. Robinson’s chance encounters with various locations, for example the site of an 1830 meteorite fall and nearby scenes of local rebellion, prompt him to record and reflect on the significance of each to greater global themes.

Patrick Keiller Robinson in Ruins film still

Patrick Keiller Robinson in Ruins film still


The Robinson Institute’s researchers have revisited Robinson’s last known journey, presenting his findings and film footage as an exhibition that features works by artists, mainly from Tate’s collection; writers, historians, geographers, cartographers and geologists; and a variety of other objects.

Audiences are invited to retrace Robinson’s steps and consider the connections that he makes. For example, the 1795 amendment to the Settlement Act, which enabled the rural poor to migrate more easily to industrial towns and cities, is shown alongside an unusually large meteorite that fell the same year. Robinson’s discovery of the Boyle-Hooke commemoration plaque on Oxford’s High Street, which celebrates two of England’s most important scientists, triggers further consideration of the historical events that led to the Industrial Revolution, as his photograph of the memorial site is juxtaposed with Ed Ruscha’s Mad Scientist 1975 and L.S. Lowry’s Industrial Landscape 1955.

Penelope Curtis, Director, Tate Britain, said:

Patrick Keiller has risen to the challenge of the Tate Britain Commission in an exceptional way with a new installation that enables us to look at the Tate’s collection in relation to some of the issues that Britain faces today, demonstrating how similar concerns run through time. Patrick Keiller’s sustained interest in understanding the English landscape, and what it can tell us about the origin of some of the world’s problems, strikes a perfect chord with the Tate collection.

Patrick Keiller Robinson in Ruins film still

Patrick Keiller Robinson in Ruins film still

There are more than 120 works on display in The Robinson Institute from historical paintings, prints and drawings by Marcus Gheeraerts, J.M.W. Turner and James Ward; and works from the 20th century by Fiona Banner, Joseph Beuys, Andreas Gursky, Richard Hamilton, John Latham, Richard Long, Paul Nash, Eduardo Paolozzi and Andy Warhol. Works of film and literature range from a first edition of Hobbes’s Leviathan to Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Little Pig Robinson and the sci-fi film Quatermass 2. The subjects featured in Keiller’s photographs include Northumbrian rock art, a close-up of lichen on an Oxford road sign in the direction of Newbury and a Ministry of Defence sign banning photography of the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston.

The exhibition is the latest result of a project on the ‘Future of Landscape and the Moving Image’. For more information do visit the website.

Head of Contemporary Art Sotheby’s Europe, Cheyenne Westphal, said:

We are very proud to be supporting Tate for the fourth year. Sotheby’s sponsorship of the Tate Britain Commission in 2012 allows the work of a British contemporary artist to be exhibited on this international and well-known stage.

Patrick Keiller Robinson in Ruins film still

Patrick Keiller Robinson in Ruins film still

Patrick Keiller was born in Blackpool in 1950. He studied architecture at University College London and fine art in the Department of Environmental Media at the RCA, where he began making films. Since the 1980s, his work has been widely exhibited in the UK and elsewhere, and includes commissions from the Arts Council, the British Film Institute, the BBC and Channel 4. Keiller first exhibited at Tate in the exhibition Artists and Sound in 1982.

Tate Britain

Millbank
London SW1P 4RG
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Dates

27 March – 14 October 2012

Supported by

Related events

Find out more

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    Renowned artist Simon Starling creates an ambitious new project in the Duveen Galleries as part of the Tate Britain Commission

  • Patrick Keiller Robinson in Ruins film still

    Artist’s talk: Patrick Keiller

    Artist Patrick Keiller talks about his work for the Tate Britain Commission, 23 May 2012

  • Patrick Keiller Robinson in Ruins film still

    Robinson in Ruins

    Patrick Keiller's film robinson in ruins showing alternate wednesdays and monthly Saturdays at Tate Btiain Auditorium

  • Patrick Keiller Oxford seen from Castle Car Park, Cowley in Robinson in Ruins 2010

    Ruins of the Future

    Brian Dillon

    Charting the genealogy of Patrick Keiller’s Robinson in Ruins, Brian Dillon considers the film’s subjects and themes in terms of what he sees as a particularly English enthusiasm for ruins.

  • Patrick Keiller Teasels with peacock butterfly, near Woodeaton in Robinson in Ruins

    To Dispel a Great Malady: Robinson in Ruins , the Future of Landscape and the Moving Image

    Stephen Daniels, Patrick Keiller, Doreen Massey and Patrick Wright

    Patrick Keiller’s film Robinson in Ruins was made as part of an AHRC project, ‘The Future of Landscape and the Moving Image’, which also involved Doreen Massey and Patrick Wright as co-researchers. Stephen Daniels introduces the film, while Keiller, Massey and Wright reflect on the ideas that shaped their research.

  • Artist

    Joseph Mallord William Turner

    1775–1851
  • Artist

    Joseph Beuys

    1921–1986
  • Artist

    L.S. Lowry

    1887–1976
  • Artist

    Mark Rothko

    1903–1970
  • Artist

    Marcus Gheeraerts II

    1561 or 2–1636
  • Artist

    James Ward

    1769–1859
  • Artist

    Fiona Banner

    born 1966
  • Artist

    Andreas Gursky

    born 1955
  • Artist

    Richard Hamilton

    1922–2011
  • Artist

    John Latham

    1921–2006
  • Artist

    Richard Long CBE

    born 1945
  • Artist

    Paul Nash

    1889–1946
  • Artist

    Sir Eduardo Paolozzi

    1924–2005
  • Artist

    Andy Warhol

    1928–1987
  • Artist

    Edward Ruscha

    born 1937
  • Artwork

    MAD SCIENTIST

    Edward Ruscha
    1975
  • Artwork

    Industrial Landscape

    L.S. Lowry
    1955
Artwork
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