The 'Tate Modern' in
London is
Britain's national museum of international
modern art and is, with
Tate Britain,
Tate Liverpool,
Tate St Ives, and
Tate Online[1], part of the group now known simply as
Tate.
The galleries are housed in the former
Bankside Power Station, which was originally designed by Sir
Giles Gilbert Scott, the architect of
Battersea Power Station, and built in two stages between 1947 and 1963. The power station closed in
1981. The building was converted by architects
Herzog & de Meuron and contractors
Carillion, after which it stood at 99m tall. The southern third of the building was retained by the
French power company
EDF Energy as an
electrical substation (in 2006, the company released half of this holding).
[2] Since the museum's opening on
12 May,
2000, it has become a very popular destination for
Londoners and
tourists. Entry to collection displays and some temporary exhibitions is free.
Layout of galleries
The permanent collection of Tate Modern is on display on levels three and five of the building, while level four houses large temporary exhibitions and a small exhibition space on level 2 houses work by contemporary artists. When the gallery opened in
2000, the collections were not displayed in chronological order but were rather arranged thematically into four broad groups: ''History/Memory/Society''; ''Nude/Action/Body''; ''Landscape/Matter/Environment''; and ''Still Life/Object/Real Life''. This was ostensibly because a chronological survey of the story of modern art along the lines of the
Museum of Modern Art in
New ''York would expose the large gaps in the collections, the result of the Tate's conservative acquisitions policy for the first half of the 20th century. The first rehang at Tate Modern - opened in May
2006 as follows, with further spaces allocated on levels 3 and 5 for shorter exhibitions has eschewed the'' thematic groupings in favour of focusing on pivotal moments of twentieth-century art, and has been met with critical success.
Level 3: Material Gestures
This focuses on
abstraction,
expressionism and
abstract expressionism, featuring work by
Claude Monet,
Anish Kapoor,
Barnett Newman,
Mark Rothko and
Tacita Dean.
[3]
Level 3: Poetry and Dream
This focuses on
Surrealism featuring work by
Salvador Dalí,
Giorgio de Chirico,
Francis Bacon,
Louise Bourgeois,
Joseph Beuys and
Cy Twombly,
Cindy Sherman and
Gillian Wearing.
[4]
Level 5: Idea and Object
This focuses on
minimalism,
conceptual art and
constructivism with work by artists such as
Carl Andre,
Dan Flavin,
Sol LeWitt,
Martin Creed[5] and
Jenny Holzer.
[6]
Level 5: States of Flux
This focuses on
Cubism,
Futurism,
Vorticism and
Pop Art,
[7] containing work by artists such as
Pablo Picasso,
[8] Eugène Atget,
[9] Roy Litchenstein and
Andy Warhol.
[10]
The Turbine Hall
The
Turbine Hall (level 1), which once housed the electricity generators of the old power station, is five storeys tall with 3,400 square metres of floorspace.
[11] It is used to display specially-commissioned work by contemporary artists, between October and March each year in a series sponsored by
Unilever. This series was originally planned to last the gallery's first five years, but the popularity of the series has led to its extension until 2008.
The artists that have exhibited specially commissioned work in the turbine hall are:
★
2000 —
Louise Bourgeois — ''Maman'', ''I Do'', ''I Undo'', ''I Redo''
★
2001 —
Juan Muñoz — ''Double Bind''
★
2002 —
Anish Kapoor — ''Marsyas''
★
2003 —
Olafur Eliasson — ''The Weather Project''
★
2004 —
Bruce Nauman — ''Raw Materials''
★
2005 —
Rachel Whiteread — ''Embankment''
★
2006 —
Carsten Höller — ''
Test Site''
★
2007 —
Doris Salcedo — to be unveiled 9 October 2007
[12]
A popular approach to Tate Modern is via the
Millennium Bridge from
St Paul's Cathedral. The closest tube station is
Southwark, although
Waterloo station or
Blackfriars tube station and a short walk over
Blackfriars Bridge may be more convenient. The lampposts between Southwark tube station and the gallery are painted orange to show pedestrian visitors the way.
There is also a
riverboat pier just outside the gallery called
Bankside Pier, with connections to the
Docklands and
Greenwich via regular passenger boat services (commuter service) and the Tate to Tate service, which connects Tate Modern with Tate Britain via the
London Eye.
New extension for 2012
A glass pyramid extension dedicated to photography, video, exhibitions and the community, on the south side of the building, also designed by
Herzog & de Meuron, which will increase the display space by 60%, was granted planning permission on 27th March 2007.
[13] This project will cost approx. £215 million and is scheduled to open in 2012, in time for the
2012 Olympic Games being held in the city.
[14] The development is outlined at the subsite
Transforming Tate Modern.
Gallery
References
1. Figure given to the nearest 100,000; the number of visitors was up by 1 million from 2005. Visits made in 2006 to visitor attractions in membership with ALVA URL accessed 10 March, 2007.
2. Tate Modern Announces Plans for an Annex
3. Tate Modern | Collection Displays | Level 3: Material es, ''Tate Online'', 2006. URL accessed on 9 February, 2007.
4. Tate Modern | Collection Displaysssssss | Level 3: Poetry and Dream, ''Tate Online'', 2006. URL accessed on 9 February, 2007.
5. Tate Modern | Collection Displays | Level 5: Idea and Object, ''Tate Online'', 2006. URL accessed on 9 February, 2007.
6. Tate Modern | Collection Displays | Level 5: Idea and Object | Image/Text (Room 11), ''Tate Online'', 2006. URL accessed on 9 February, 2007.
7. Tate Modern | Collection Displays | Level 5: States of Flux''Tate Online'', 2006. URL accessed on 9 February, 2007.
8. Tate Modern | Collection Displays | Level 5: States of Flux | Cubism, Futurism, Vorticism (Room 2), ''Tate Online'', 2006. URL accessed on 9 February, 2007.
9. Tate Modern | Collection Displays | Level 5: States of Flux | Machine Eye (Room 4)''Tate Online'', 2007. URL accessed on 9 February, 2007.
10. Tate Modern | Collection Displays | Level 5: States of Flux | Pop (Room 7)''Tate Online'', 2006. URL accessed on 9 February, 2007.
11. Profile: Rachel Whiteread
12. "Sculptor set for Tate Modern hall", ''BBC News Online'', 2007. URL accessed on 8 April, 2007.
13. Tate modern | Transforming Tate Modern, ''Tate Online'', 2006. URL accessed on 30 March, 2007.
14. Tate Modern's chaotic pyramid, ''The Times'', 26 July, 2006. URL accessed on 26 July, 2006.
External links
★
Tate Online - Official Tate website
★
★
Tate Modern
★
★
Interactive Tate Modern gallery plan
★
'Tate Modern: a Year of Sweet Success' by
Esther Leslie, in
Radical Philosophy
★
Quicktime VR of the Tate Modern from the Millennium Bridge - British Tours Ltd
★
360 Panorama outside the Tate Modern
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