Ever fancied seeing yourself on a city centre billboard? Ever wanted to get your opinions heard? Ever longed to tell the world what you think of art? Now’s your chance. Tate Liverpool is launching a new marketing campaign that will put its visitors, and their opinions on art, in the spotlight.
Tate Liverpool is home to the Tate’s national collection of modern and contemporary art in the North of England, and visitors are invited to give their views on works from the current Tate Collection display: DLA Piper Series: The Twentieth Century – How it looked & how it felt. The display, at Tate Liverpool until spring 2009, is a key part of Tate Liverpool’s contribution to Liverpool European Capital of Culture 2008 and features masterpieces such as Rodin’s The Kiss (1901-14), Picasso’s Weeping Woman (1937) and Degas’ Little Dancer Aged Fourteen (1880-1).
Tate Liverpool is working with renowned design agency Fallon, who have been responsible for some of the UK’s most memorable campaigns that include recent ads for ASDA and Skoda. Remarking on Fallon’s first visit to Tate Liverpool, Jennifer Cawkwell, Marketing Officer for Tate Liverpool, said: “When Fallon visited Tate Liverpool they were really surprised by how much our visitors talked about the work and how it made them feel. We recognised that the really great thing about a visit to the Gallery is when a particular work “speaks” to someone and that anyone can have a personal response to the art we have on display. It seemed sensible to let our visitors do the talking and encourage others to do the same”.
The theme of the campaign is ‘The one that spoke to me’. Visitors can pick up comment cards from specially-designed stands in the Gallery, and on Saturday 16 February the visitors that leave the most interesting comments, will be invited to a filming and photography session to see if they have what it takes to be the face of the Tate Liverpool Collection campaign. Comments from visitors will feature on the Tate website, on a poster campaign throughout the North West and in further activity throughout 2008.
First to leave their comment is Philip Rooney, Partner of DLA Piper, who said of Alberto Giacometti’s Man Pointing (1947): “I was captivated by this piece on first sight from a distance, before I knew what it was. To me it reflects the essence of humankind - there are no preconceptions created by the subject’s clothes, his status, his surroundings, his ethnicity or his facial appearance. This is the spirit of the subject, the inner core, on which we make our assessment of the subject. How often in our lives do we assess people based on their “inner core” without being distracted by external issues?”
Fallon has worked with other Tate sites in previous years. In 2005 Fallon worked on the award-winning campaign ‘Make Your Own Collection’ for Tate Britain and in 2006 worked on the ‘Tate Tracks’ campaign for Tate Modern.