Do you feel strongly about a particular work of art at Tate Britain and want to share your thoughts and insight with others? Now, for the first time, Tate Britain is inviting you to write your own label for a work featured in the BP British Art Displays and it may be selected to accompany the work on the walls of the gallery.
From today visitors to Tate Online can select a work from the current displays at Tate Britain and submit a label explaining why the work means so much to them. Visitors to Tate Britain may also contribute a label at the gallery. The first selection from these submissions will be placed alongside the works for the launch of
British Art Week, supported by BP, on 20 September.
Tate Britain holds the national collection of British art from 1500 to the present day and contains important work by all the great masters of British art including Hogarth, Stubbs, Blake, Turner, Constable, the Pre-Raphaelites, Spencer, Hepworth and Bacon along with a consistently refreshed series of rooms displaying contemporary British art. Tate would particularly like to hear from visitors who have a special interest in the subject matter of some of the works, those with a passion for music, fashion, botany, theology or engineering, for example, or those that live near or have visited a place shown in one of the landscapes or those who have experienced an event shown in one of the paintings.
The BP British Art Displays for 2005 include a range of new displays reflecting the breadth and scope of British art in the Tate Collection. Along with the permanent major displays given to John Constable and J.M.W .Turner there are solo displays devoted to the art of
GF Watts, Vanessa Bell, Francis Bacon, Patrick Caulfield, Richard Long and a group of new acquisitions of Tracey Emin’s work. New themed rooms include those devoted to medieval stained glass fragments; a special two-room display exploring British national identity, curated by the leading scholar David Bindman and including a room dedicated to influential masters of caricature such as James Gillray; On England a display looking at the pastoral tradition in British art of the early to mid-twentieth century and Society Consumed a room exploring contemporary artists’ concerns relating to the environment.
Stephen Deuchar, Director of Tate Britain, said:
This initiative gives us an opportunity to reflect the clear passion felt by our visitors, some of whom make pilgrimages to see the icons in the BP British Art Displays, while complementing the scholarly texts that accompany the works. I’m looking forward to reading the thoughts and ideas of our visitors.
Visitors can find the list of highlights from the displays and forms to write their captions on the Tate website. The BP British Art Displays are launched as part of British Art Week (20-26 September), the annual celebration based at Tate Britain featuring artist talks, lectures, a family day and a late-evening public British Art Party among many other events.