Tate Britain Art Now space
30 June – 14 October 2007
This summer, Tate Britain’s Art Now programme is moving to a new exhibition space at the heart of the gallery. It will occupy a larger space enabling a more varied exhibition programme and group exhibitions. Its more prominent position next to the Sackler Octagon at the centre of the Duveen galleries reflects Tate Britain’s commitment to contemporary British art and support of emerging artists.
Opening on 30 June until 14 October, Goshka Macuga will be the first artist to exhibit in the new Art Now gallery. Her installation Objects in Relation will host an idiosyncratic display of other artists’ work with disparate collections of objects - trees, rocks, books, artefacts and curios - selected from nature and Tate’s own archive and permanent collection. Diving into history and the subconscious, the exhibition will explore the collective possibilities of artist groups active in the 1930s to suggest new opportunities for exhibition making and display.
Art Now demonstrates the quality and variety of new art in the UK and highlights current developments in contemporary British art. The programme presents new work by emerging artists living and working in Britain, giving them vital exposure at an early stage of their career. The Art Now programme includes new commissions outside the Gallery, film and video work in the dedicated black box space Lightbox; performance work around the gallery and a frequently changing series of exhibitions in the Art Now gallery.
Until 28 October Christina Mackie’s new sculpture, The Large Huts, will be on the lawns to the front of Tate Britain. Natural, manmade and crafted elements are combined to create a complex vocabulary that stems first and foremost from Mackie’s own experience of the world and private thought processes.
On 8 September Art Nowand commissioning agency Electrawill present Art Now Live – a day of performance works that explore ideas of participation and storytelling. Artists including the Bohman Brothers, Melanie Gilligan, Emma Hedditch, Janice Kerbel, and Olivia Plender will perform works throughout Tate Britain, encouraging visitors to get involved.
The 2007 Art Now programme is curated by Lizzie Carey-Thomas, Rachel Tant and Katharine Stout. Electra is a London-based curatorial agency specialising in cross-artform projects and commissions (www.electra-productions.com).
A new book edited by the curators of Art Now will be launched in tandem with the opening of the Art Now gallery. Keep On Onnin’: Contemporary Art at Tate Britain surveys Art Now projects from 2004 – 2007.