Tate is delighted to announce that Unilever will be extending its sponsorship of The Unilever Series at Tate Modern for a further five years until 2012. The sponsorship over five years is £2.1 million, which will bring Unilever’s total support of The Unilever Series to over £4 million.
The Unilever Series has been a huge success to date. Over 17 million people have come to the Turbine Hall to see The Unilever Series since it began in 2000 when Tate Modern opened. The extended sponsorship means that Tate will be able to continue to commission leading international artists to create new works of art for the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern each year.
The artists that have created work for The Unilever Series are Louise Bourgeois (I do, I undo, I redo, 2000) Juan Muñoz (Double Bind, 2001), Anish Kapoor (Marsyas, 2002), Olafur Eliasson (Weather Project, 2003), Bruce Nauman (Raw Materials, 2004), Rachel Whiteread (Embankment, 2005) and Carsten Höller (Test Site, 2006). Colombian artist Doris Salcedo will create the next commission which opens this October.
Director of Tate, Sir Nicholas Serota said:
Tate is delighted Unilever has renewed its sponsorship until 2012. The next five years will be exciting ones for Tate Modern and we are extremely pleased that such a long-standing sponsor should remain so strongly committed to our plans.
Unilever CEO Patrick Cescau said:
This has been one of the most successful industry/arts collaborations of modern times and we are delighted to be able to extend our sponsorship to 2012. Our decision to renew for another five years reflects our confidence in Tate Modern’s ability to remain one of the world’s pre-eminent modern art galleries.
Through our Vitality mission, Unilever is focused on ensuring consumers ‘get more out of life’; Tate Modern’s international reach and its reputation for innovation and creativity fit neatly with that aspiration and with Unilever’s wider business objectives.