Press Release

ARTIST ROOMS - Robert Therrien: Smoke Signals

Friday 24 June – Sunday 16 October 2011

ARTIST ROOMS returns to Tate Liverpool this summer, showcasing the extraordinary, oversized sculpture No Title (Table and Four Chairs) 2003 by American artist Robert Therrien alongside a selection of sculpture and works on paper.

Following the success of 2009 and 2010, nineteen museums and galleries across the UK in 2011 will be showing twenty-three ARTIST ROOMS exhibitions and displays from the collection created by Anthony d’Offay, and acquired by the nation in February 2008. ARTIST ROOMS on Tour with the Art Fund has been devised to enable this collection held by Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland to reach and inspire new audiences across the country, particularly young people.

Robert Therrien (b 1947) was born in Chicago and lives and works in Los Angeles. In the early 1980s he became known for making simple, recognisable objects such as pitchers, coffins and doors, in a variety of media including copper, wood and bronze. He began experimenting with scale in the 1990s, enlarging household objects to gigantic proportions.  His work gives an air of magic to the everyday by changing the viewer’s perspective.  The overwhelming size of Therrien’s sculptures creates an inescapable interaction between the viewer, the artwork and the surroundings.  Therrien’s imposing work, No Title (Table and Four Chairs) 2003, will fill the ground floor Wolfson Gallery at Tate Liverpool, inviting visitors to experience the ordinary becoming extraordinary.  Also on display will be the sculptures No Title (Beard Cart) 2004 and No Title (Stacked Plates) 2010, and two works on paper, No Title (Scrubbrush panel) 1997 and No Title (Large Red Brick Drawing) 2003.

Robert Therrien: Smoke Signals runs in parallel with Tate Liverpool’s exhibition René Magritte: The Pleasure Principle (24 June – 23 October 2011), a major retrospective of the Belgian Surrealist who had a major influence on Therrien.  Tate Liverpool’s surreal summer continues into the autumn with Alice in Wonderland (4 November 2011 – 29 January 2012). 

To find out more information about ARTIST ROOMS on Tour please visit www.artfund.org/artistrooms. To see the full ARTIST ROOMS collection please visit www.tate.org.uk/artistrooms and www.nationalgalleries.org/artistrooms

Close