Sixty Years: The Unfinished Conversation

Linder, She/She  1981, printed 2007

She/She consists of fourteen black and white photographs, nine of which are portraits of Linder and the remaining five are photographs of short sections of text written in a typewriter font. The prints are presented in black frames, usually displayed in two horizontal rows of seven to be viewed in the sequence top row left to right, bottom row left to right, with the text pages interspersing the portraits. The photographs of Linder are by the Swiss photographer Christine Birrer, with whom Linder collaborated at this time on a number of different projects. The work was first produced in a booklet Pickpocket: SheShe 1981 to coincide with the release of a six-track cassette tape, Pickpocket, by the group Ludus, of which Linder was a member. The booklet format was slightly different to that originally conceived, and as it has now been printed and editioned. The fragments of text are written by Linder and taken from three of the songs on the cassette, Mutilate, The Fool and Mouthpiece. They refer to the themes of hiding, searching and finding evoked in the images.

Sunil Gupta, Johnathan & Kim, London  1985, printed 2018

This is one of a group of photographs in Tate’s collection from Sunil Gupta’s Lovers: Ten Years On, a series of over thirty black and white portraits of gay couples taken in the United Kingdom between 1984 and 1986 (Tate P82123–P82137 and Ian and Julian P13784). With the exception of Martin & Gary, Newcastle-upon-Tyne 1984 (Tate P82123), they were all taken in London. Lovers: Ten Years On was made after Gupta’s own ten-year relationship ended and, as a form of social analysis, he decided to document the long-term gay relationships he encountered and the changing sensibilities of the social environment he found himself a part of. Most of the subjects are from his own social milieu at the time, professional couples resident in the Greater London area. Taken over a period of two years, the black and white portraits all follow the same format – they are shot in domestic interiors, the poses and arrangements reminiscent of traditional family photographs. The subjects are centred in the frame and look directly into the camera. Most of the couples are shown in affectionate poses and embraces within their domestic settings; some included their pets in the picture, others chose to be depicted in front of works of art in their living rooms, surrounded by books, or in their kitchens.The series was accompanied by an artist’s statement, in which Gupta observed that while there had been a shift in gay self-consciousness since the 1970s, the arrival of HIV and Aids had once again turned public opinion against the acceptance of homosexuality, and that its popular and commercial representations were dominated by a stereotype of deviance. In contrast, the couples in Lovers: Ten Years On are shown as often quite ordinary, white middle-class, professional people in long term monogamous relationships. Gupta wrote:

Gilbert & George, England  1980

Gilbert and George started their collective practice with performance and went on to make multi-part photographic pieces like this. Here, they seem to show an ambivalent attitude towards national identity as their confrontational poses are juxtaposed with the more playful gargoyle-like crouching figures above a faded Tudor rose in the centre. This work is part of a series of over 100 photo-works collectively titled Modern Fears produced between 1980 and 1981, which focus on the death and decay they saw as permeating the urban environment.

Gallery label, September 2016

Nicole Wermers, The Violet Revs  2016

Mona Hatoum, Current Disturbance  1996

Referencing both the human body and rigid systems of abstraction, the installation Current Disturbance 1996 is made from an immense grid of over 200 cages, light bulbs and the amplified sound of electric currents. As the bulbs light up and fade out at irregular intervals, they sporadically illuminate the surrounding gallery. Inside each of the cages rests a single lightbulb, all interconnected via a central convergence. Another single bulb is suspended inside the structure, illuminating the junction box at the centre. The grid of metal cages sets up a contrast between the sense of systematization and the chaos of randomised flashing lights and the mess of wiring covering the floor. The tension arising from this juxtaposition of elements serves to intensify the feeling of suspended energy and instability, inspiring a certain discomfort in the viewer.

Liz Johnson Artur, Time Don’t Run Here  2020

Time don’t run here forms part of what Artur calls her Black Balloon Archive. She has been making this vast ongoing body of work since the 1990s, depicting people in Africa, and of the African and Caribbean diasporas. Examples from the Archive are displayed here. ‘In my work, I like to talk to people, not about them. When people look at my work, they are actually looking at my audience. It’s them I would like to reach, but everyone else is invited too.’

Gallery label, November 2022

Rita Keegan, Homage to Frida Kahlo  1987

Homage to Frida Kahlo 1987 is a self-portrait of the artist painted in oil on a square canvas. The right half of the composition features two vertical black stripes separated by a white stripe with a fluid pattern painted over it resembling loose wire netting. Across all three stripes the artist has painted the stem of an orchid-like flower with pink blooms and a green stem. To the left of the canvas Keegan has depicted herself from the chest up, wearing an off-the-shoulder dress in a striped, grey fabric. She looks directly at the viewer in a manner reminiscent of the self-portraits of the influential Mexican artist Frieda Kahlo (1907–1954), a reference which the title of the painting directly acknowledges. Additionally, Keegan has painted her skin with a number of red marks that look like fissures or cracks and might relate to specific paintings by Kahlo such as The Broken Column 1944 (Museo Dolores Olmedo, Mexico City), painted shortly after Kahlo underwent spinal surgery, where small nails pierce the surface of the artist’s skin.

Sunil Gupta, Ian & Pavlik, London  1984, printed 2018

This is one of a group of photographs in Tate’s collection from Sunil Gupta’s Lovers: Ten Years On, a series of over thirty black and white portraits of gay couples taken in the United Kingdom between 1984 and 1986 (Tate P82123–P82137 and Ian and Julian P13784). With the exception of Martin & Gary, Newcastle-upon-Tyne 1984 (Tate P82123), they were all taken in London. Lovers: Ten Years On was made after Gupta’s own ten-year relationship ended and, as a form of social analysis, he decided to document the long-term gay relationships he encountered and the changing sensibilities of the social environment he found himself a part of. Most of the subjects are from his own social milieu at the time, professional couples resident in the Greater London area. Taken over a period of two years, the black and white portraits all follow the same format – they are shot in domestic interiors, the poses and arrangements reminiscent of traditional family photographs. The subjects are centred in the frame and look directly into the camera. Most of the couples are shown in affectionate poses and embraces within their domestic settings; some included their pets in the picture, others chose to be depicted in front of works of art in their living rooms, surrounded by books, or in their kitchens.The series was accompanied by an artist’s statement, in which Gupta observed that while there had been a shift in gay self-consciousness since the 1970s, the arrival of HIV and Aids had once again turned public opinion against the acceptance of homosexuality, and that its popular and commercial representations were dominated by a stereotype of deviance. In contrast, the couples in Lovers: Ten Years On are shown as often quite ordinary, white middle-class, professional people in long term monogamous relationships. Gupta wrote:

Sunil Gupta, Roger & Steve, London  1984, printed 2018

This is one of a group of photographs in Tate’s collection from Sunil Gupta’s Lovers: Ten Years On, a series of over thirty black and white portraits of gay couples taken in the United Kingdom between 1984 and 1986 (Tate P82123–P82137 and Ian and Julian P13784). With the exception of Martin & Gary, Newcastle-upon-Tyne 1984 (Tate P82123), they were all taken in London. Lovers: Ten Years On was made after Gupta’s own ten-year relationship ended and, as a form of social analysis, he decided to document the long-term gay relationships he encountered and the changing sensibilities of the social environment he found himself a part of. Most of the subjects are from his own social milieu at the time, professional couples resident in the Greater London area. Taken over a period of two years, the black and white portraits all follow the same format – they are shot in domestic interiors, the poses and arrangements reminiscent of traditional family photographs. The subjects are centred in the frame and look directly into the camera. Most of the couples are shown in affectionate poses and embraces within their domestic settings; some included their pets in the picture, others chose to be depicted in front of works of art in their living rooms, surrounded by books, or in their kitchens.The series was accompanied by an artist’s statement, in which Gupta observed that while there had been a shift in gay self-consciousness since the 1970s, the arrival of HIV and Aids had once again turned public opinion against the acceptance of homosexuality, and that its popular and commercial representations were dominated by a stereotype of deviance. In contrast, the couples in Lovers: Ten Years On are shown as often quite ordinary, white middle-class, professional people in long term monogamous relationships. Gupta wrote:

Sunil Gupta, Karl & Daniel, London  1985, printed 2018

This is one of a group of photographs in Tate’s collection from Sunil Gupta’s Lovers: Ten Years On, a series of over thirty black and white portraits of gay couples taken in the United Kingdom between 1984 and 1986 (Tate P82123–P82137 and Ian and Julian P13784). With the exception of Martin & Gary, Newcastle-upon-Tyne 1984 (Tate P82123), they were all taken in London. Lovers: Ten Years On was made after Gupta’s own ten-year relationship ended and, as a form of social analysis, he decided to document the long-term gay relationships he encountered and the changing sensibilities of the social environment he found himself a part of. Most of the subjects are from his own social milieu at the time, professional couples resident in the Greater London area. Taken over a period of two years, the black and white portraits all follow the same format – they are shot in domestic interiors, the poses and arrangements reminiscent of traditional family photographs. The subjects are centred in the frame and look directly into the camera. Most of the couples are shown in affectionate poses and embraces within their domestic settings; some included their pets in the picture, others chose to be depicted in front of works of art in their living rooms, surrounded by books, or in their kitchens.The series was accompanied by an artist’s statement, in which Gupta observed that while there had been a shift in gay self-consciousness since the 1970s, the arrival of HIV and Aids had once again turned public opinion against the acceptance of homosexuality, and that its popular and commercial representations were dominated by a stereotype of deviance. In contrast, the couples in Lovers: Ten Years On are shown as often quite ordinary, white middle-class, professional people in long term monogamous relationships. Gupta wrote:

Sunil Gupta, Dylan & Gerald, London  1985, printed 2018

This is one of a group of photographs in Tate’s collection from Sunil Gupta’s Lovers: Ten Years On, a series of over thirty black and white portraits of gay couples taken in the United Kingdom between 1984 and 1986 (Tate P82123–P82137 and Ian and Julian P13784). With the exception of Martin & Gary, Newcastle-upon-Tyne 1984 (Tate P82123), they were all taken in London. Lovers: Ten Years On was made after Gupta’s own ten-year relationship ended and, as a form of social analysis, he decided to document the long-term gay relationships he encountered and the changing sensibilities of the social environment he found himself a part of. Most of the subjects are from his own social milieu at the time, professional couples resident in the Greater London area. Taken over a period of two years, the black and white portraits all follow the same format – they are shot in domestic interiors, the poses and arrangements reminiscent of traditional family photographs. The subjects are centred in the frame and look directly into the camera. Most of the couples are shown in affectionate poses and embraces within their domestic settings; some included their pets in the picture, others chose to be depicted in front of works of art in their living rooms, surrounded by books, or in their kitchens.The series was accompanied by an artist’s statement, in which Gupta observed that while there had been a shift in gay self-consciousness since the 1970s, the arrival of HIV and Aids had once again turned public opinion against the acceptance of homosexuality, and that its popular and commercial representations were dominated by a stereotype of deviance. In contrast, the couples in Lovers: Ten Years On are shown as often quite ordinary, white middle-class, professional people in long term monogamous relationships. Gupta wrote:

Sunil Gupta, Andrew & John, London  1985, printed 2018

This is one of a group of photographs in Tate’s collection from Sunil Gupta’s Lovers: Ten Years On, a series of over thirty black and white portraits of gay couples taken in the United Kingdom between 1984 and 1986 (Tate P82123–P82137 and Ian and Julian P13784). With the exception of Martin & Gary, Newcastle-upon-Tyne 1984 (Tate P82123), they were all taken in London. Lovers: Ten Years On was made after Gupta’s own ten-year relationship ended and, as a form of social analysis, he decided to document the long-term gay relationships he encountered and the changing sensibilities of the social environment he found himself a part of. Most of the subjects are from his own social milieu at the time, professional couples resident in the Greater London area. Taken over a period of two years, the black and white portraits all follow the same format – they are shot in domestic interiors, the poses and arrangements reminiscent of traditional family photographs. The subjects are centred in the frame and look directly into the camera. Most of the couples are shown in affectionate poses and embraces within their domestic settings; some included their pets in the picture, others chose to be depicted in front of works of art in their living rooms, surrounded by books, or in their kitchens.The series was accompanied by an artist’s statement, in which Gupta observed that while there had been a shift in gay self-consciousness since the 1970s, the arrival of HIV and Aids had once again turned public opinion against the acceptance of homosexuality, and that its popular and commercial representations were dominated by a stereotype of deviance. In contrast, the couples in Lovers: Ten Years On are shown as often quite ordinary, white middle-class, professional people in long term monogamous relationships. Gupta wrote:

Sunil Gupta, Emmanuel & David, London  1984, printed 2018

This is one of a group of photographs in Tate’s collection from Sunil Gupta’s Lovers: Ten Years On, a series of over thirty black and white portraits of gay couples taken in the United Kingdom between 1984 and 1986 (Tate P82123–P82137 and Ian and Julian P13784). With the exception of Martin & Gary, Newcastle-upon-Tyne 1984 (Tate P82123), they were all taken in London. Lovers: Ten Years On was made after Gupta’s own ten-year relationship ended and, as a form of social analysis, he decided to document the long-term gay relationships he encountered and the changing sensibilities of the social environment he found himself a part of. Most of the subjects are from his own social milieu at the time, professional couples resident in the Greater London area. Taken over a period of two years, the black and white portraits all follow the same format – they are shot in domestic interiors, the poses and arrangements reminiscent of traditional family photographs. The subjects are centred in the frame and look directly into the camera. Most of the couples are shown in affectionate poses and embraces within their domestic settings; some included their pets in the picture, others chose to be depicted in front of works of art in their living rooms, surrounded by books, or in their kitchens.The series was accompanied by an artist’s statement, in which Gupta observed that while there had been a shift in gay self-consciousness since the 1970s, the arrival of HIV and Aids had once again turned public opinion against the acceptance of homosexuality, and that its popular and commercial representations were dominated by a stereotype of deviance. In contrast, the couples in Lovers: Ten Years On are shown as often quite ordinary, white middle-class, professional people in long term monogamous relationships. Gupta wrote:

Sunil Gupta, Sue & Yve, London  1984, printed 2018

This is one of a group of photographs in Tate’s collection from Sunil Gupta’s Lovers: Ten Years On, a series of over thirty black and white portraits of gay couples taken in the United Kingdom between 1984 and 1986 (Tate P82123–P82137 and Ian and Julian P13784). With the exception of Martin & Gary, Newcastle-upon-Tyne 1984 (Tate P82123), they were all taken in London. Lovers: Ten Years On was made after Gupta’s own ten-year relationship ended and, as a form of social analysis, he decided to document the long-term gay relationships he encountered and the changing sensibilities of the social environment he found himself a part of. Most of the subjects are from his own social milieu at the time, professional couples resident in the Greater London area. Taken over a period of two years, the black and white portraits all follow the same format – they are shot in domestic interiors, the poses and arrangements reminiscent of traditional family photographs. The subjects are centred in the frame and look directly into the camera. Most of the couples are shown in affectionate poses and embraces within their domestic settings; some included their pets in the picture, others chose to be depicted in front of works of art in their living rooms, surrounded by books, or in their kitchens.The series was accompanied by an artist’s statement, in which Gupta observed that while there had been a shift in gay self-consciousness since the 1970s, the arrival of HIV and Aids had once again turned public opinion against the acceptance of homosexuality, and that its popular and commercial representations were dominated by a stereotype of deviance. In contrast, the couples in Lovers: Ten Years On are shown as often quite ordinary, white middle-class, professional people in long term monogamous relationships. Gupta wrote:

Sunil Gupta, Guy & Brian, London  1984, printed 2018

This is one of a group of photographs in Tate’s collection from Sunil Gupta’s Lovers: Ten Years On, a series of over thirty black and white portraits of gay couples taken in the United Kingdom between 1984 and 1986 (Tate P82123–P82137 and Ian and Julian P13784). With the exception of Martin & Gary, Newcastle-upon-Tyne 1984 (Tate P82123), they were all taken in London. Lovers: Ten Years On was made after Gupta’s own ten-year relationship ended and, as a form of social analysis, he decided to document the long-term gay relationships he encountered and the changing sensibilities of the social environment he found himself a part of. Most of the subjects are from his own social milieu at the time, professional couples resident in the Greater London area. Taken over a period of two years, the black and white portraits all follow the same format – they are shot in domestic interiors, the poses and arrangements reminiscent of traditional family photographs. The subjects are centred in the frame and look directly into the camera. Most of the couples are shown in affectionate poses and embraces within their domestic settings; some included their pets in the picture, others chose to be depicted in front of works of art in their living rooms, surrounded by books, or in their kitchens.The series was accompanied by an artist’s statement, in which Gupta observed that while there had been a shift in gay self-consciousness since the 1970s, the arrival of HIV and Aids had once again turned public opinion against the acceptance of homosexuality, and that its popular and commercial representations were dominated by a stereotype of deviance. In contrast, the couples in Lovers: Ten Years On are shown as often quite ordinary, white middle-class, professional people in long term monogamous relationships. Gupta wrote:

Sunil Gupta, Bruno & Daniel, London  1984, printed 2018

This is one of a group of photographs in Tate’s collection from Sunil Gupta’s Lovers: Ten Years On, a series of over thirty black and white portraits of gay couples taken in the United Kingdom between 1984 and 1986 (Tate P82123–P82137 and Ian and Julian P13784). With the exception of Martin & Gary, Newcastle-upon-Tyne 1984 (Tate P82123), they were all taken in London. Lovers: Ten Years On was made after Gupta’s own ten-year relationship ended and, as a form of social analysis, he decided to document the long-term gay relationships he encountered and the changing sensibilities of the social environment he found himself a part of. Most of the subjects are from his own social milieu at the time, professional couples resident in the Greater London area. Taken over a period of two years, the black and white portraits all follow the same format – they are shot in domestic interiors, the poses and arrangements reminiscent of traditional family photographs. The subjects are centred in the frame and look directly into the camera. Most of the couples are shown in affectionate poses and embraces within their domestic settings; some included their pets in the picture, others chose to be depicted in front of works of art in their living rooms, surrounded by books, or in their kitchens.The series was accompanied by an artist’s statement, in which Gupta observed that while there had been a shift in gay self-consciousness since the 1970s, the arrival of HIV and Aids had once again turned public opinion against the acceptance of homosexuality, and that its popular and commercial representations were dominated by a stereotype of deviance. In contrast, the couples in Lovers: Ten Years On are shown as often quite ordinary, white middle-class, professional people in long term monogamous relationships. Gupta wrote:

Lubaina Himid CBE RA, H.M.S. Calcutta  2021

Mona Hatoum, Performance Still  1985–95

Mona Hatoum first became known in the early 1980s for a series of performance and video pieces which used her own body as a site for exploring the fragility and strength of the human condition under duress. Performance Still 1985 records one of three street performances which Hatoum carried out in Brixton for the Roadworks exhibition organised in 1985 by the Brixton Artists Collective. The performance consisted of the artist walking barefoot through the streets of Brixton for nearly an hour, with Doc Marten boots, usually worn by both police and skinheads, attached to her ankles by their laces. Performance Still, printed and published ten years later turns the original documentary photograph of the performance into a work in its own right, and has therefore come to identify this aspect of Hatoum’s practice.

Gallery label, October 2013

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Razorbill  2020

Razorbill 2020 is a small-scale oil painting of a single female figure with closely cropped hair. Her mouth is open as though caught mid-speech or song. Her upper body is clothed in near black, with a feathered ruffle at the collar. Her right forearm and left elbow rest on a tabletop. The motif of the carnivalesque ruff is one that reappears in Yiadom-Boakye’s work from 2009 onwards, in a number of paintings titled with bird names such as Les Corbeaux 2018, Greenfinch 2012 and Skylark 2010. Razorbill is closely related to these in its tones but is markedly different in its shift towards the looser brushwork and warmer palette that characterises Yiadom-Boakye’s work of 2020.

Rita Donagh, Long Meadow  1982

The conflict in the north of Ireland in the 1970s and 1980s saw violent acts by both Unionists and Republicans perpetrated in mainland Britain and Northern Ireland. One of the key sites during those times was the Maze Prison in County Antrim, formerly known as Long Kesh or ‘Long Meadow’, the title of Donagh’s painting. Paramilitary prisoners were housed in the eight prison ‘H Blocks’, projected by Donagh in perspective onto a square canvas, echoing the square plan of a single cell block. The aerial view and the subtle rendering of the light convey the feeling of an air raid.

Gallery label, September 2016

Mohammed Sami, Refugee Camp  2022

Veronica Slater, Soul Identified as Flesh  1987 – 1988

Adam Farah-Saad, Two traumatised young men connect whilst roaming the city of London, helping each other to survive…(THE INNER CHILDREN MIX)  2023

Derek Jarman, Dead Man’s Eyes  1987

Partou Zia, 40 Nights and 40 Days  2008

Rachel Jones, lick your teeth, they so clutch  2021

lick your teeth, they so clutch 2020 is a large-scale landscape-format painting in oil stick on canvas. Like Jones’s earlier paintings, it employs a kaleidoscopic palette and boldness of form typical of her work. Here, fiery reds collide with fleshy pinks and acid yellows against the counterbalancing coolness of blues and greens, contributing to the sense of tension created by the competing forms and the interplay of textures. Jones’s characteristic use of oil sticks as her medium allows her to create an intensity of pigment, layering colour and melding different textural layers that result in a tactile painted surface suggestive of a physical, embodied and intuitive approach to mark-making.

Paul Maheke, Mutual Survival, Lorde’s Manifesto  2015

Mutual Survival, Lorde’s Manifesto 2015 is a two-channel colour video installation presented on two floor-based forty-two-inch LED smart screens displayed leaning against a wall. The work’s title references the American Black feminist writer and activist Audre Lorde (1934–1992) whose words, borrowed and edited together from her essay ‘I am Your Sister’ published in 1985, caption the video intermittently. ‘As a people, we should most certainly work together to end our common oppression,’ the video subtitle begins. ‘We need to join our differences and articulate our particular strengths in the service of our mutual survivals.’ The work lasts seventeen minutes and fifteen seconds and exists in an edition of five. Tate’s copy is number one in the edition.

Mike Nelson, The Asset Strippers (Elephant)  2019

The Asset Strippers (Elephant) 2019 is a large sculptural assemblage made from reclaimed industrial items and materials. It was made as part of Mike Nelson’s larger project The Asset Stripers, his response to the Tate Britain Commission for the Duveen Galleries in 2019. A brilliant blue lathe balances on two wooden timbers on top of a pair of blue trestles. At the top of the lathe sits a dark green anglepoise lamp without a bulb. Positioned alongside at floor level are assorted lathe parts. Three of the parts lie horizontally, two stand upright. Each has been carefully placed in the manner of an archeological artefact or sculptural object, rather than an industrial machine part. The lathe and its component parts are placed on five abutting cast concrete slabs that together resemble a low-level traditional sculptural plinth. The compositional treatment of the parts, together with the monochromatic colour scheme, is reminiscent of British modernist sculpture, in particular the industrial assemblages of Anthony Caro (1924–2013). However, unlike much of Caro’s work, The Asset Strippers (Elephant) has not been painted or surface-treated. The patina of age and use of its reclaimed parts are visible in areas of rusting and traces of oil. Two other assemblages from The Asset Strippers are also in Tate’s collection: The Asset Strippers (Heygate stack, equivalent for a lost estate) 2019 (Tate T15412) and Double Drill (No. 15) 2019 (Tate T15411).

Claudette Johnson MBE, Untitled  1987

Untitled depicts different views of the same woman, artist Brenda Agard (1961–2012). Agard and Johnson exhibited together in the 1980s. They were both included in The Thin Black Line, the landmark exhibition curated by artist Lubaina Himid (born 1954) at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London in 1985. Johnson is known for her larger-than-life drawings of Black women. Her figures seem to resist their containment within the paper on which she works. She describes her work as existing outside the realm of portraiture. Johnson instead creates a ‘presence’ for her subjects, that resists objectification.

Gallery label, December 2020

Denzil Forrester MBE, Three Wicked Men  1982

Forrester grew up in Grenada before moving to Britain at the age of ten. Three Wicked Men was made while Forrester was a student at the Royal College of Art. The painting captures the dynamic energy of the London reggae and dub nightclub scene of the early 1980s where Forrester sketched people as they danced. He also portrayed racial and social injustices, prompted by the death in police custody of his friend Winston Rose.

Gallery label, July 2017