Tate Modern Exhibition

Open Systems Rethinking Art c.1970

1 June – 18 September 2005

Braco Dimitrijević, The Casual Passer-By I Met at 11.28 am, London, October 1972 1972. Tate. © Braco Dimitrijevic.

Open Systems: Rethinking Art c.1970 brings together the work of international artists who radically rethought the object of art in the late 1960s and 1970s. The featured artists sought to connect with the increasingly urgent political developments of the decade and make their work more responsive to the world around them. Building on the structures of Minimalism and Conceptualism, they reacted against art's traditional focus on the object by adopting experimental aesthetic 'systems' across a variety of media including photography, dance, performance, painting, installation, video and film.

The exhibition includes key installations from the period and works by the following artists:

Tate Modern

Bankside
London SE1 9TG
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Dates

1 June – 18 September 2005

In partnership with

Times Newspapers Ltd

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Hélio Oiticica: The Body of Colour

Hélio Oiticica: The Body of Colour: Press related to past exhibition.

Richard Long

Richard Long past Tate St Ives exhibition

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Bruce Nauman - Make Me Think Me

Bruce Nauman - Make Me Think Me: Press related to past exhibition.

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The Unilever Series: Bruce Nauman

The Unilever Series: Bruce Nauman: Press related to past exhibition.

Gerhard Richter Tate Modern exhibition banner

Gerhard Richter: Panorama

Gerhard Richter: Panorama major retrospective exhibition grouping together significant moments of the artist’s remarkable career. Tate Modern

Alighiero Boetti exhibition at Tate Modern

Alighiero Boetti: Game Plan

2012 exhibtion at Tate Modern of artist and key member of the Arte Povera group, Alighiero e Boetti

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Gilbert & George

Gilbert & George in conversation about their work.

Eva Hesse

Explore the work of one of the most important sculptors of the late 20th century, Eve Hesse. Tate Modern 13 November 2002 – 9 March 2003

Donald Judd

Donald Judd, Tate Modern

Cildo Meireles

Cildo Meireles; past exhibition at Tate Modern

Robert Smithson at Pentre Ifan dolmen, Wales 1969

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Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson in England, 1969

Nancy Holt and Simon Grant1

Robert Smithson, best known for his Land Art piece Spiral Jetty, and Nancy Holt, best known for her work Sun Tunnels, were both fascinated by man’s imprint on the natural landscape. They often travelled together and documented their work – and themselves – in photographs. In 1969 they took an important journey through England and Wales visiting sites that resonated with their practice, ranging from ancient ruins and landscaped gardens to wild natural places. For the first time, Holt reflects on the trip and its influence on their art

Robert Smithson spiral Jetty April 1970, Great Salt Lake, Utah

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Psychosis and the Sublime in American Art: Rothko and Smithson

Timothy D. Martin

This paper addresses the work of Mark Rothko (1903–1970) and Robert Smithson (1938–1973), and, referring to the philosopher Kant and psychoanalyst Lacan, discusses how the sublime can have a psychotic aspect. It argues that Kant’s categorical imperative, for all its attempts to exclude self-interest and the pathological aspects of the hypothetical imperative, establishes a frame not only for sublime aesthetic experience but also for psychotic delusion.

Hans Haacke Norbert: ‘All Systems Go’ 1970–1

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All Systems Go: Recovering Jack Burnham’s ‘Systems Aesthetics’

Luke Skrebowski

Jack Burnham’s systems aesthetics was one of the first, fully developed, critical theories of postformalist artistic practice. Yet Burnham, undeservedly, is little known today. Recovering, reprising and reassessing his work produces a richer reading of art production c.1970. It also suggests an alternative genealogy of contemporary practice.