Tate Research
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Tate Research
 

Research Posts

Researchers in Tate's Research Department

Fellowships

Tate will be announcing a Fellowship scheme shortly.

Research posts

Tate is able from time to time to offer research posts relating to various aspects of its research programme. Often these posts are funded by external grant-giving bodies or are created in partnership with other institutions. Details of the application procedures to be followed are given with the information provided about each post.

Leverhulme Trust Post-Doctoral Studentships
'Art School Educated: Curriculum Change in UK Art Schools 1960-2010': Two Post-Doctoral Studentships
Closing date for applications: 18 September 2009

Studentships

Tate is delighted to host a growing number of doctoral students engaged in research at Tate. As part of the collaborative element of their doctorates, the students work at Tate in a variety of ways, gaining professional experience and contributing their ideas and knowledge to Tate's programmes and projects. Below is a list of current award holders.

Details of new awards, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, are advertised on Tate's website and elsewhere in the spring of each year.

Bryony Bery
Replicas and Reconstructions: Case Studies in Twentieth-Century Art
University College London
Supervised by Professor Briony Fer (Professor of History of Art, UCL) and Dr Matthew Gale (Head of Displays, Tate Modern)
September 2007 –

There are various reasons for replicating works, historic and current, including making replicas where works were lost or have been destroyed to artists' versions and editions to works that need to be ‘remade' each time they are installed. Where possible I shall use as case studies works in Tate's Collection or that are relevant to Tate's programme of displays and exhibitions to think through the ethical issues: the why, when and who makes replicas and their status in institutions and on the market.

Concentrating on art produced in America and Europe in the 1960s and exhibited at group shows such Anti-Illusion: Procedures/Materials, 9 at Leo Castelli and Live in Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form, I shall problematise finish in the context of fragile and ephemeral materials. This will allow me to consider the precariousness and ephemateriality of works and unravel the issues at stake when they are replicated. I shall also consider the continual materiality of works and their repeatability, the problematic of ‘finishedness' and surface finish. The research will be technical and critical, arguing for the logic of a work, the logic of disintegration and the logic of replication.

Inherent Vice: The Replica and its Implications in Modern Sculpture, a workshop held at Tate Modern in October 2007, demonstrated the apparent desire and anxiety of replicating works, especially twentieth-century sculpture. I attended this workshop as part of the collaborative aspect of my doctoral project and co-edited the papers from this event that were published on Tate's online journal, Tate Papers, in the Autumn 2007 issue. The collaboration allows me to use resources at Tate whilst also investigating works where issues surrounding replication may need resolving, be it acknowledged in signage or agreed with Trustees, artists or estates. A conference on replication is envisaged for 2010 and, as part of the collaboration, I shall be assisting Tate with this event and possible publication.

Katie Croll-Knight
The Early Photography of Man Ray
University of Essex
Supervised by Professor Dawn Ades and Dr Jennifer Mundy, Head of Collections Research, Tate 2006 –

My thesis examines Man Ray's early photography, beginning with his first signed photographs, Man and Woman of 1918, and focusing on the rayographs, which Man Ray himself saw as the culmination of his previous work (in both photographic and other media).

Man Ray's photography is often discussed in isolation from his other work, but I shall contextualise it within his work across different media, showing how the rayograph represented the logical development of his painting, and examining how his assemblage and object work evolved in tandem with his photography, and is inseparable from it. I shall also examine the extension of the rayograph technique into film with Retour à la raison (1923). The contemporary photographic and artistic context will also be examined, looking in particular at the photographer Alfred Stieglitz, who provided a model for Man Ray, demonstrating the potential of photography as an expressive medium, and was also a figure to rebel against. Throughout his writings Man Ray returns to the idea of his photography as the ‘residue', ‘ashes' or remains of the creative act and photography as performance or event will be an overarching theme. Play and chance, the verbal dimension of Man Ray's work, and the international reception of the rayographs will also be explored.

My collaboration with Tate centred on the 2008 exhibition Duchamp, Man Ray, Picabia that opened at Tate Modern and toured to the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya in Barcelona. My main contribution was a 30,000 word chronology which was published in the exhibition catalogue. This interwove the individual histories of the three artists, drawing out the connections between them, and encompassed both their professional and personal lives. Through my research I was also able to contribute to the content of the show itself by suggesting possible works and connections that could be highlighted in the exhibition. I also acted as a more general researcher, dealing with ongoing questions that arose, and providing an initial draft of the wall captions for the exhibition. In February I attended the installation of the exhibition at Tate Modern where I was able to examine the works up-close, many of them for the first time, and to discuss them with conservators from both Tate and lending institutions. Having worked on the project since the early stages of its development it was particularly rewarding to follow the process through to its completion. Working closely with the show's curator and attending and participating in curatorial meetings and discussions gave me valuable insight into curatorial processes and the evolution of a major exhibition.

Corinna Dean
Establishing Tate Modern Cultural Quarter
London School of Economics
Supervised by Professor Robert Tavernor and Donald Hyslop, Head of Regeneration and Community Partnerships, Tate
January 2007 –

My research seeks to explore the impact of the Tate Modern Cultural Quarter on regenerating the area around Bankside in Southwark. I look at the currency of the term ‘cultural quarter' and examine its role in relation to the promotion of London as a world-class cultural city. When culture is competing on the same level as the economic prowess of a city, how does this impact on the cultural narrative?

Much debate has centred round the role of the museum as cultural and urban regenerator, leading often to an over simplification of events. In order to examine this late twentieth-century model of regeneration and to assess the extent of social and cultural regeneration I shall examine past precedents. Culture is playing a key role in the promotion of cities, but without strong programming and curatorial leadership the success of a building can be undermined.

I shall explore Tate's role and its relationship to hegemonic practice in the context of concepts of display and public mandate. Between 1975 when the National Theatre was completed and 1997 when the British Library was opened, no major cultural buildings were built in London (in contrast to the ‘Grand Projects' of François Mitterand, which were all financed and directed by the French government). Here I shall examine the significance of Tate's autonomy vis-à-vis government and its relationship to sponsors. Central to my research are the questions of whether and how the Tate has introduced a new paradigm of contemporary culture, unique to the institution.

As part of the collaborative element of my doctorate, Tate has made available records relating to the creation of Tate Modern and has allowed me to discuss my work with key figures within Tate.

Caroline Donnellan
Establishing Tate Modern: Vision and Patronage
London School of Economics
Supervised by Professor Robert Tavernor and Dr Victoria Walsh, Head of Adult Programmes, Tate
September 2006 –

Spectacular architecture has come to play a major role in museum design in the global arena. The converted Bankside Power Station building is a key feature in the success of Tate Modern. It is today the most visited museum of modern art in the world. The focus of my research is to provide an in-depth study of the cultural, economic and political aspects on how the gallery of modern art was established. Therefore, an analysis will be undertaken on the governance, the art works and the building which make up Tate Modern. My aims are to promote a better understanding of Tate Modern's building and collection; to raise awareness of the relationship between landmark architecture, culture and art in a world capital; and to estimate the importance of Tate Modern locally and nationally.

My work at the Tate includes using Tate's extensive archives, drawing on TG 12: Tate Modern Project, 1986-2000 and TG 1/ 3: Minutes of Trustee's Meetings. Additionally, I have looked at the architectural competition submissions. Tate's Library is a useful facility, and I have received guidance from members of staff.

Susannah Gilbert
Latin American Art in an International Context
University of Essex
Supervised by Dawn Ades and Tanya Barson, Curator, Tate
October 2008 –

In some Latin American countries conceptual art grew out of artists' responses to authoritarianism. I am particularly interested in Mail Art since the 1960s, the use of systems of circulation and exchange and the written word in art, and aim to look at the relationship between Mail artists from Latin America and those from the US and the links with Fluxus. The artists who will feature in this analysis include Eugenio Dittborn, Paulo Bruscky, Luis Camnitzer and Mira Schendel. I shall try to establish how this anti-art framework has been carried into the art of the 1990s and the present day. The preoccupation with non-art spaces and with mass media and circulation continues, with some artists attempting to challenge transnational capitalism.

Latin American Art collected in the UK in recent years has tended to reflect a social and political agenda, whereas cultural institutions had previously approached the field in an apolitical way. I aim to explore the sudden growth in collecting Latin American Art in Britain in the 1990s and, in particular, this focus on politically engaged art.

For the collaborative element of the doctorate I shall contribute to research into Tate's Latin American collection through writing texts about individual works and, where possible, interviewing artists.

Rikke Hansen
The Sublime Animal: Contemporary Art and the Animal Aesthetic
The London Consortium
Supervised by Dr John Sellars (Tutor, The London Consortium) and Richard Humphreys (Curator, Tate)
July 2007 –

This PhD is part of a larger AHRC-funded research project at Tate titled ‘The Sublime Object: Nature, Art and Language', which brings together scholars and practitioners from art, philosophy, literary criticism, curatorial studies and art history to discuss the legacy of the notion of the sublime in historical and contemporary art discourse.

My thesis ‘The Sublime Animal' feeds into the general research project by focusing on a neglected element in current debates relating to the status of the sublime: that of the non-human animal. In Kant's definition, the notion of the sublime is dependent on a nature-culture distinction which sees animals reduced to landscape furniture. Furthermore, according to Kant, the sublime is that for which we fail to find a concept. It follows that, that which escapes the very definition of the ‘sublime', it itself without ‘concept'. ‘The Sublime Animal' examines how artistic sublimity obeys a taboo on art, exercised through the expulsion of animal form. In recent years, art has taken an animal turn, with an increasing number of artists turning to the non-human animal as motif and material in their work. This PhD takes as its starting point the idea that animals present a specific problem to and for aesthetics rather than simply constituting a ‘theme' within individual works. ‘The Sublime Animal' examines the interface between animal studies, contemporary art, and, importantly, twentieth-century aesthetics, most notably the philosophies of Theodor Adorno and Jacques Derrida who both wrote about animals, animality and the sublime. The focus on twentieth-century aesthetics does not constitute an attempt to find a theoretical framework to ‘match' contemporary art practices; instead, the PhD aims to show how the present turn to animals in art comes out of an already existing concern within philosophical aesthetics.

Alex Hodby
Tate Modern and the Expansion of ‘New Institutionalism': New Developments in Art and Public Programming Practices
Goldsmiths, University of London
Supervised by Bernadette Buckley and Marko Daniel, Curator of Public Programmes, Tate
2007 –

My research explores the implications of so-called ‘new institutional' practices in art organisations and their programmes. Various approaches to art and its institutions will be addressed using debates in areas such as institutional critique, radical art history and critical curatorial practices. Social, political and economic influences on art institutions will be studied, as well as the reciprocal implications of ‘new' programming strategies on these cultural forces.

The roles of curator, artist and audience will be examined to help uncover the mechanisms of programming strategies. The implications of these strategies for the ongoing creation, negotiation, presentation and viewing of art will be considered.

Tate Modern is the main case study by which to test the ideas outlined above. I shall focus on specific projects and analyse data gathered from archives, events and interviews with staff to track the developments in their programming strategies. My link with Tate Modern will enable me to look closely at past and current developments, as well as future aspirations, in this particular institution's practices, and reflect on contextual circumstances over the course of my research.

Particular attention will be paid to the practice and strategies of the public programmes team, and consideration will be given to the bringing of exhibitions and public programmes into a common frame. Tate Modern's influence on programming practice will be addressed, enabling an examination of the potential for ‘new institutional' practices to create new platforms for the exploration of ideas.

Rob Knifton
Centre of the Creative Universe: Liverpool and the Avant-Garde
University of Liverpool
Supervised by Professor Jim Aulich and Dr Christoph Grunenberg, Tate
2005 –

My thesis discusses the nature of the urban environment as evidenced in the practice of art galleries. Beginning with an extended analysis of the 2007 exhibition at Tate Liverpool, Centre of the Creative Universe, I develop a theoretical framework situated around three key topics related to the city and museum: the application of narrative forms, equivalence of space, and archives of anamnesis and amnesia.

At Tate Liverpool I have researched and co-curated the exhibition Centre of the Creative Universe alongside Tate Liverpool Director Christoph Grunenberg and Assistant Curator Darren Pih. I contributed to, and co-edited, the catalogue, published by Liverpool University Press. The exhibition examined perceptions of Liverpool from the perspective of a number of artists, including: Bernd and Hilla Becher, Yoko Ono, the Boyle Family, and Rineke Dijkstra. It also included a specially-commissioned work on Brian Epstein by Jeremy Deller and Paul Ryan. I also helped to establish and manage the Tate Liverpool Postgraduate Resarch Forum, which offers postgraduate students a platform for presenting their work.

http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/exhibitions/centreofthecreativeuniverse/

Ali MacGilp
The London Art Market and the Formation of a National Collection at Tate 1926-1950
University of Reading
Supervised by Dr Anna Gruetzner Robins and Robert Upstone, Curator, Modern British Art, Tate
2006 –

My thesis looks at the way the London art world functioned in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, and Tate's position within that system. It examines what works entered Tate's collection and the circumstances surrounding their acquisition. It also explores the important works that did not enter the collection, through lack of enterprise or the over-cautious attitude and conservative taste of Tate staff and Trustees.

It considers the structure of Tate as an institution, including its budget and function, and the relationships of its staff and Trustees with dealers, artists and collectors, mostly based in London. It was these social and professional networks, together with critics' judgements in the national press, which influenced purchases. The thesis examines the backgrounds and perspectives on art of the Tate Trustees and senior staff in order to ascertain the factors that contributed to the conservative nature of Tate's acquisition policy during this period.

The thesis uses Tate Trustee Board Minutes and correspondence alongside dealers' sales records, press cuttings and correspondence with artists. It locates works from Tate's collection by British artists Matthew Smith, Paul Nash and the British surrealists, and the European surrealists and modernist masters back into the London art market of the time of their acquisition. The galleries focused on are Alex Reid & Lefevre, Arthur Tooth & Sons, Zwemmer Gallery, Mayor Gallery, Guggenheim Jeune and the London Gallery.

Marion Martin
J.M.W. Turner and German Romanticism
University of Leicester
SSupervised by Dr Matthew Potter (University of Leicester) and Dr David Blayney Brown (Tate Britain)
September 2009 –

The idea of 'landscape' and its transformativity through changing light and weather conditions during a day or longer periods of time are fundamentally bound to ideas of the Romantic self. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries nature became an aesthetic prism for expressing subjective moods and desires. It also constituted a vocabulary for negotiations of idealised concepts such as beauty, truth and nationality. For German writers and scholars such as Schlegel, Novalis and Tieck the distinctive features of landscapes were important in the evolution of their theories, while philosophical assumptions became the premises of their records of nature.

My research explores the influences of imaginary German landscapes on the works and reception of J.M.W. Turner, who studied their geographic counterparts extensively as he travelled through the German states. Tate’s Turner collection constitutes the key resource for this research, and I hope to contribute to the cataloguing programme. In addition to Turner’s sketches and paintings, the artist’s manuscript material will also be of particular relevance to the project.

Antoinette McKane
Tate Liverpool as a Force for Social Renewal? A Critical Study of Tate Liverpool's Interpretation and Education Policies and Practices (1988-2008)
University of Liverpool's Centre for Architecture and Visual Arts (CAVA)
Supervised by Jonathan Harris and Lindsey Fryer, Head of Learning, Tate
2007 –

Tate Liverpool was founded in 1988 on the premise that the new gallery would ‘in no way be a poor relation of its London counterpart but would have the distinct identity of being a gallery dedicated to showing modern art and encouraging a new younger audience through an active education programme.' The aim of this project is to assess this claim historically in the context of the enlarging of the Tate family of galleries and the changing nature of the city of Liverpool.

My thesis charts the history of interpretation and education policy and practice at Tate Liverpool in relation to the mission of the institution as a whole, museum practice in general and the changing face of education, interpretation and artistic practice. This involves analysing and evaluating the work of the Learning Department in relation to selected exhibitions at Tate Liverpool, examining the close links that have been made over the years with other cultural organisations, academic institutions and community organisations in Liverpool, and how the department has grown within the structure of the gallery over the past twenty years.

The project treats Tate Liverpool as a case study in order to provide an original analysis of the changing mission of the museum in the city and to give insight into the changing nature of the interpretation of modern and contemporary art, highlighting the centrality of discourse and mediation in relation to this area of practice and exploring the interface between education and exhibitions.

The nature of the work undertaken at Tate can be divided into three categories: archival; documentary and observational. As an essentially historical study, this research makes use of the archival resources available at the Hyman Kreitman Research Centre, situated at Tate Britain, where the development of Tate Liverpool, and its educational provisions, can be traced through the analysis of original gallery records. At Tate Liverpool, analysis of working documents is employed to chart the development, from initial concept to final evaluation, of the key exhibitions and events. Observational research includes attending planning and project meetings at Tate Liverpool and participating in outreach activities undertaken in collaboration with Tate Liverpool's external partners, such as HMP Altcourse. The advice and experience of Tate Liverpool's staff also helps to direct and inform the research through regular supervision and more formal interviews.

Seph Rodney
Two Rooms: Locating the Meeting Place of the Visitor and the Museum
Birkbeck College
Supervised by Gordon Fyfe and Marko Daniel, Curator of Public Programmes, Tate Modern

The subject of my research is what is known about the visitor outside the majority of standard institutional logics. Certainly, a great deal is known about visitors to museums of modern and contemporary art. Demographic information is readily available, as is knowledge of habitual behaviour in the museum, motivations, ways of learning, who will not come and in general terms why. Given the competing interests of stakeholders within and without museums, the visitor is understood and treated, not according to the individual's needs, but according to the agendas that appear to coalesce in the room, at the moment and point of contact with art. Can an individual's contextualised experience - read through the prism of the space of the room, the history of a particular institution, the models of consumerism, standards of tourism, stated interests of curators, visitor services staff, and other museum professionals — shed light on what is at stake and for whom in the seemingly unadorned, simple act of viewing a work of art? This project seeks to test what certain museums and their staff say about their interest in the viewer against the actual experience of one person in different museums and different times in his life.

Tate Modern acts as a case study. I look at a particular room within it and I derive information from it through a phenomenological reading. This is reviewed against the narratives told by museum staff about the nature of the museum, what its aims are, along with what kinds of visitors they say they would like to welcome to the museum, what they hope these visitors get from the experience and how they should behave while in the museum. It appears that different departments have somewhat different views of these aims and of the desired visitor types. Through unstructured interviews with staff members and close reading of the texts produced by Tate, I aim to test certain hypotheses concerning the comprehension of the visitor and the uses to which this understanding is put by this institution.

Philippa Simpson
The London Art Market, 1790-1815: The New Exhibition Culture and the Staging of the British School
Courtauld Institute of Art
Supervised by David Solkin and Martin Myrone, Curator of 18th & 19th century British Art, Tate
October 2005 –

My research is focused on the flood of imports entering London during the French War period, and the exhibition culture this generated.

As the consumption of Old Master paintings became an increasingly high profile business, and as the works entering London were of a far greater range and quality than previously seen, spaces for their display began to emerge as sites for the consideration of different national schools. Important sales, such as those of the Orleans Collection, formerly owned by a branch of the French royal family, provided the opportunity for inaugural exhibitions of Old Master art, and introduced new audiences to the spectacle of the display as distinct from the business of the sale.

These impressions were crystallised during a brief but fully exploited period of peace, when visits to the Louvre were possible. As the spectre of French cultural authority threatened to throw into relief London's lack of a National Gallery, the market was increasingly mobilised to provide an alternative to the continental ‘public museum'. Private collections began to open, and to construct their own methodologies of display, related to but not reliant upon continental models. Within these spaces, and at exhibitions in the market-place, the relationship between British artists and a European tradition was forged in two ways: practicing artists were granted access to examples, from which they might study, absorbing the principles of the art of the past; and deceased British artists began to be constructed as Old Masters in their own right, as examples from whom living artists might learn. In this way the British School was formulated upon both definitions of the term; as artistic seminary, and as national cultural identity.

My doctoral research has formed part of the development of the Turner and the Masters exhibition, opening in London in 2009, then travelling to the Grand Palais, Paris, and the Museo del Prado, Madrid. Since the start of my doctorate, I have been heavily involved with the curatorial administration of this project, and have offered support in many aspects of its organisation, including: loans, logistics, design, publicity, sponsorship and conservation, as well as research activities. I have acted as a point of contact between partner venues, as well as communicating with lenders and registrars. My work on the PhD has tessellated extremely closely with the life of the project, and each has been shaped by the other in a variety of ways. I have also been involved with staging a number of displays, including Hockney on Turner, and Visionary Landscapes, and have written interpretative materials and catalogue texts for shows, including a Turner exhibition travelling to Russia. I was involved with the funding proposals for the Imagine a Nation project, and am currently developing a new display for the Clore Galleries at Tate Britain for early 2009.

Stephanie Straine
Drawing Strategies in the 1960s and 1970s
University College London Supervised by Professor Briony Fer (Professor of History of Art, UCL) and Dr Mark Godfrey (Curator of Contemporary Art, Tate Modern) September 2009 –

My thesis addresses and attempts to account for the survival of figurative, illusionistic and gestural forms of drawing in the 1960s and 1970s – an era dominated by the diagrammatic and anti-aesthetic concerns of conceptualism and the radical deconstruction of the traditional art object. This research project will complicate the well-established theorisation of drawing as process or prototype, opening up the field to works, such as those in the ARTIST ROOMS collection, which fail to fit this model.

While the diagrammatic and working drawings of the 1960s and 1970s have received much critical attention, the idea of the finished drawing has been routinely overlooked. In this conception of drawing, the flux of process or the preliminary nature of working something out is substituted for a considered study of the activity, materials and techniques of drawing. In the work of Vija Celmins, Ed Ruscha and Joseph Beuys, and perhaps even Ellen Gallagher, Agnes Martin and Sol LeWitt (all featured in ARTIST ROOMS), drawing approaches a sensual, haptic quality that undercuts the received non-aestheticism of conceptual art. My thesis will reconfigure this relatively unexamined strand of drawing practice in terms of the oddity of perfection, extremity of finish, and a sustained, almost pressurised, model of looking.

During my collaboration with Tate I shall be based at the Research Department at Tate, studying and researching works of art in order to write short texts on the ARTIST ROOMS drawings for online publication. These texts will contribute to the interpretation and public awareness of these little-known drawings, the majority of which have been rarely studied or exhibited. By combining an academic thesis with the writing of accessible interpretative texts for the drawings, my collaborative PhD envisions a pluralistic approach to working with a permanent collection, the ultimate outcome being a significant scholarly reassessment of drawing’s myriad strategies at this crucial juncture in the history of modern art.



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