ON VIEW AT TATE

Tate Britain Rehang – Opened to the public on May 24, 2023
Tate Britain has completed a rehang of the world’s greatest collection of British art; the first time in ten years that the gallery’s free displays have been presented anew. Visitors can now discover over 800 works by over 350 artists spanning six centuries. Much-loved and iconic works – from John Everett Millais’ Ophelia and David Hockney’s A Bigger Splash to Barbara Hepworth’s Pelagos and Chris Ofili’s No Woman, No Cry – are joined by a host of new discoveries and additions. Reflecting the growing diversity of Tate’s collection, the displays feature 200 works which were acquired after the millennium. These include 70 works which entered the collection in the past 5 years alone, from grand Tudor portraits to contemporary installations.

Isaac Julien at Tate Britain until August 20, 2023
This ambitious solo exhibition reveals the scope of Isaac Julien’s pioneering work in film and installation from the early 1980s through to the present day. The exhibition highlights Julien’s critical thinking and the way his work breaks down barriers between different artistic disciplines, drawing from film, dance, photography, music, theatre, painting and sculpture by utilizing the themes of desire, history and culture.

Hilma af Klint and Piet Mondrian at Tate Modern until September 3, 2023
This is a unique opportunity to discover the visionary work of Swedish painter Hilma af Klint and experience Dutch painter Piet Mondrian’s influential art in a new light. At the heart of both of their artistic journeys was a shared desire to understand the forces behind life on earth.

Best known for his abstract work, Mondrian in fact began his career – like af Klint – as a landscape painter. Alongside Mondrian’s abstract compositions, you will see the rarely exhibited paintings of flowers he continued to create throughout his life. Also on display will be enigmatic works by af Klint in which natural forms become a pathway to abstraction. Both artists shared an interest in new ideas of scientific discovery, spirituality and philosophy. Af Klint was also a medium, and this exhibition showcases the large-scale, otherworldly paintings she believed were commissioned by higher powers.

Tate Liverpool and Liverpool Biennial – June 10, 2023 to September 17, 2023
The Liverpool Biennial is the UK’s largest contemporary visual arts festival which takes place across Liverpool’s public spaces, galleries and museums, including Tate Liverpool. The 12th edition of the Biennial is titled uMoya: The Sacred Return of Lost Things and addresses the history and temperament of the city of Liverpool and is a call for ancestral and indigenous forms of knowledge, wisdom and healing. In the isiZulu language, uMoya means spirit, breath, air, climate and wind.

The artists on display at Tate Liverpool explore the space between life and death and how to work through ancestral pain towards healing. Highlights include Isabel do Rosário’s largescale textile pieces, exhibited for the first time outside of Brazil, the first showing of Edgar Calel’s Ru k’ ox k’ob’el jun ojer etemab’el (The Echo of an Ancient Form of Knowledge) 2021 and Torkwase Dyson’s monumental Liquid A Place 2021 which directly converses with the brutal histories of the water and docks which surround the gallery. The display also includes work by Fátima Rodrigo Gonzales, Francis Offman, Gala Porras-Kim, Guadalupe Maravilla, Lubaina Himid, Nolan Oswald Dennis, Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, and Shannon Alonzo.

LATIN AMERICAN ACQUISITIONS COMMITTEE RESEARCH TRIP TO MEXICO CITY AND MERIDA

The Latin American Acquisitions Committee research trip, led by Tobias Ostrander, Estrellita B. Brodsky Curator-at-Large, Latin American Art at Tate, explored Mexico City’s vibrant contemporary art scene, with visits to the studios of Mexican artists Abraham Cruzvillegas, Tania Candiani, Pedro Reyes, Carlos Amorales, Fernando Palma Rodriquez, various private art collections, and key galleries and arts institutions to view exhibitions by Tate Collection artists including Gala Porras-Kim at MUAC and a new commission by Erika Verzutti at El Eco.  The group then travelled to Merida and visited studios and galleries and completed the trip with an extraordinary visit to the James Turrell Agua de Luz.

NORTH AMERICAN ACQUISITIONS COMMITTEE RESEARCH TRIP TO AMERICAN SOUTH

The North American Acquisitions Committee research trip explored the American South with visits throughout Atlanta, Montgomery, Birmingham and surrounding areas, such as the Gee’s Bend Quilt Community in Boykin, Bryan Stevenson’s Equal Justice Initiative Museum and Memorial in Montgomery, Black American Portraits touring exhibition at Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, the new UTA Artists Space in Atlanta, studio visits with Michi Meko, Hasani Salehe, William Downs, and Dawn Williams Boyd; collection visits, and Selma landmarks such as the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The final day the Committee visited Joe Minter’s African Village with special guest Lonnie Holley.