Tate Modern celebrated its fifth anniversary in May 2005 by launching a campaign to attract more children and young people. To initiate the campaign, Tate Modern’s major exhibition Frida Kahlo was free to everyone aged 18 years and under, including school groups.
More generally, Tate Modern’s programme of interpretation, education and community work continued with the energy and innovation which has characterised this programme since the opening of the gallery, and is one of the factors that accounts for its ongoing public success. The team at Tate Modern continues to work on this extensive programme with a range of partners, including individual artists and academics, local cultural organisations such as the Brixton Street Studio, sponsors such as Bloomberg and UBS, and academic partners such as the City Lit, Plymouth University and Goldsmiths College.
One of the highlights of the biennium was a project organised by children’s charity Kids Company in collaboration with Tate Modern’s Raw Canvas programme. During the summer of 2004 over 1,000 children aged between four and twenty attended a series of workshops in which they produced work that communicated their experience of life; some of these young people’s work was displayed in a remarkable exhibition held in the grounds of Tate Modern in 2005, entitled Shrinking Childhoods. Other Raw Canvas creations included a downloadable audio tour of the Collections rehang, devised and produced by the young people involved with the programme.
Work continued on planning for the further development of Tate Modern as a major cultural centre. The architectural practice Herzog & de Meuron, appointed in 1995 to convert the Bankside Power Station into Tate Modern, was reappointed following a competition in 2005 to develop a further scheme for the completion of the gallery and its surrounding landscape. As with the original scheme, this work has continued in close collaboration with local community groups, businesses and the London Borough of Southwark. A designated space to be used as a community garden was defined and developed in partnership with local residents and Bankside Open Spaces Trust.
Tate Modern’s programme of exhibitions and displays in 2004–6 consolidated its position as one of the premier modern and contemporary art institutions in the world. A number of major exhibitions enjoyed extraordinary public success, notably Edward Hopper in 2004 and Frida Kahlo in 2005. Meanwhile, Tate Modern continued its exploration of the range of media used by modern and contemporary artists with two photography shows devoted to Robert Frank and Jeff Wall, and the first major exhibition devoted exclusively to film and video, Time Zones.
The texture of the programme was improved further by the development of a number of projects supplementary to the main exhibitions and displays. Building on the early success of Tate Modern’s live events, cross-site performances and film programmes, highlights of this biennium included collaborations with the British Film Institute, Dance Umbrella, Electra and individual choreographers, artists and musicians such as Merce Cunningham, Joan Jonas and Christian Marclay. The new Level 2 Gallery programme, meanwhile, continued to provide opportunities for lesser-known artists to show in London, developing strength as a platform for a diverse and eclectic programme.
Much work was undertaken in the biennium to prepare for a complete rehang of the Collection displays, which opened in May 2006. In the run up to the rehang, subtle changes to individual rooms and groups of rooms continued to bring fresh insights to modern and contemporary art. A gift from American printmaker and publisher Kenneth E Tyler was the largest given to Tate since the founding of the print collection in the mid-1970s, and a display of 40 key works from the gift was organised in 2004. An-in depth exploration of the work of Alberto Burri, Lucio Fontana and Piero Manzoni was the subject of a new display, Beyond Painting, at Tate Modern in 2005.
