Free Display
Media Networks
See how artists in Tate’s collection have responded to the impact of mass media
© Lee Mawdsley
Look at some of the ways in which artists over the past hundred years have responded to the impact of mass media and the ever-changing technologies that shape our world.
Including a diverse range of techniques and materials – from posters and paint to analogue and digital technology – the display raises questions around feminism, consumerism and the cult of celebrity.
10 rooms in Media Networks
Roy Lichtenstein, Whaam! 1963
Whaam! is based on an image Lichtenstein found in a 1962 DC comic, All American Men of War. Lichtenstein often used art from comics and adverts in his paintings. He saw the act of taking an existing image and changing the context as a way of transforming it’s meaning. Lichtenstein was interested in emotional subjects, such as love and war. His work takes on these themes in a distant and impersonal way.
Gallery label, July 2020
1/6
highlights in Media Networks
Cildo Meireles, Babel 2001
2/6
highlights in Media Networks
Guerrilla Girls, Dearest Art Collector 1986
3/6
highlights in Media Networks
Ming Wong, Life of Imitation 2009
4/6
highlights in Media Networks
Martin Kippenberger, Untitled 1989
This sculpture combines elements from two Kippenberger series, the ‘Peter sculptures’ and his ‘drunken lamps’. Here, an angled lamp post skews a bookcase-like structure, while taped to the back is a photo of Kippenberger picking his nose. Kippenberger’s Peter works adopted a DIY aesthetic, using found materials and bits of furniture, often leaving mistakes deliberately visible. They were made in part as a response to the meticulous craftsmanship seen in lots of sculpture. Around this time, he also produced works with bent and wonky lampposts.
Gallery label, August 2024
5/6
highlights in Media Networks
Leonor Fini, Little Hermit Sphinx 1948
Fini’s paintings depict women as complex and powerful beings. Little Hermit Sphinx shows a surreal and unsettling scene. A sphinx sits at the threshold of a decrepit building with a human organ hanging above its head. The sphinx is a mythological creature that is part lion and part woman, with the wings of a bird. In 1947 Fini underwent a hysterectomy. The bleeding flesh above and the broken egg below the sphinx might point to the artist coming to terms with infertility. Here the Sphinx assumes a genderless state, becoming Fini’s alter ego and a recurrent symbol of feminine empowerment in her work.
Gallery label, September 2024
6/6
highlights in Media Networks
Highlights
Roy Lichtenstein
Whaam!
1963
Cildo Meireles
Babel
2001
Guerrilla Girls
Dearest Art Collector
1986
Ming Wong
Life of Imitation
2009
You've viewed 4/6 highlights
You've viewed 6/6 highlights