Artists’ Perspectives

Artists’ Perspectives was an initiative launched in 2010, aiming to offer wider linguistic access to Tate by offering articles about the collection in languages other than English. It was initially funded via the World Collections Programme, and the artists approached were from outside Europe and North America.

Artists were invited to write a short article on a single work – or a small selection of works – in Tate’s collection, to be published in English and another language of their choice, which was usually their first language. Six texts were completed, by the artists Nazgol Ansarinia, Lamia Joreige, Kader Attia, Cao Fei, Kishio Suga and Carla Zaccagnini.

Arabic

• Artists’ Perspectives: Avenue Patrice Lumumba by Lamia Joreige
• Artists’ Perspectives: Two Beds by Nazgol Ansarinia

Chinese

• Artists’ Perspectives: Sensation and Chinese Contemporary Art 1999–2000 by Cao Fei

French

• Artists’ Perspectives: Avenue Patrice Lumumba by Lamia Joreige
• Artists’ Perspectives: Aesthetic Anthropophagy by Kader Attia

As part of the next stage of Artists’ Perspectives we will translate a number of texts written by international artists for Tate’s magazine, Tate Etc. These will be published in late 2013 in Chinese, Arabic, French and Spanish, to sit alongside the existing English versions in Tate Etc.

We will continue to produce new Artists’ Perspectives in future, commissioning and translating more texts in a wider variety of languages. Alongside artists, other protagonists in the art world might also be invited to write texts. As the project evolves the constant elements will be:

• Texts will engage with the Tate collection
• Authors will be mostly from outside the UK
• Texts will be published in English and at least one other language

• Browse all Tate Etc. / Artists’ Perspectives articles