Hetain Patel Don’t Look at the Finger 2017. Video, high definition, projection, colour and sound (stereo), 16min, 9sec.
Hetain Patel’s work reflects on how cultural identity is communicated through performance and popular culture
Don’t Look at the Finger 2017, is a film following the rituals of a West-African wedding ceremony in a church. The title references a quote by Bruce Lee from the 1973 Kung-Fu film Enter the Dragon.
For Patel, who grew up in multicultural Britain, Hollywood films were a source of escapism and a subject of shared interest with peers. This video combines familiar cinematic tropes with cross-cultural references. Actors of West African heritage perform East Asian martial arts, wearing costumes inspired by Japan and Mongolian dress that are made using Dutch wax fabric, commonly worn by West African communities at times of celebration.
This work has been chosen in response to themes, such as dance, in the Barbara Hepworth: Art & Life exhibition.
Tate St Ives
Level 3
28 January – 1 May 2023
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Mark Rothko, Black on Maroon 1958
This is one of a series of large paintings Rothko made for a fashionable New York restaurant. By layering the paint, he created subtle relationships between the muted colours. They are much darker in mood than his previous works. He was influenced by the atmosphere of a library designed by the Italian artist Michelangelo (1475–1564). Rothko recalled the feeling of being ‘trapped in a room where all the doors and windows are bricked up’. A restaurant, he decided, was the wrong setting for these paintings. Instead, he presented the series to Tate gallery.
Gallery label, June 2020
1/5
artworks in Hetain Patel: Don't Look at the Finger
Mark Rothko, Black on Maroon 1959
This is one of a series of large paintings Rothko made for a fashionable New York restaurant. By layering the paint, he created subtle relationships between the muted colours. They are much darker in mood than his previous works. He was influenced by the atmosphere of a library designed by the Italian artist Michelangelo (1475–1564). Rothko recalled the feeling of being ‘trapped in a room where all the doors and windows are bricked up’. A restaurant, he decided, was the wrong setting for these paintings. Instead, he presented the series to Tate gallery.
Gallery label, June 2020
2/5
artworks in Hetain Patel: Don't Look at the Finger
Mark Rothko, Red on Maroon 1959
This is one of a series of large paintings Rothko made for a fashionable New York restaurant. By layering the paint, he created subtle relationships between the muted colours. They are much darker in mood than his previous works. He was influenced by the atmosphere of a library designed by the Italian artist Michelangelo (1475–1564). Rothko recalled the feeling of being ‘trapped in a room where all the doors and windows are bricked up’. A restaurant, he decided, was the wrong setting for these paintings. Instead, he presented the series to Tate gallery.
Gallery label, June 2020
3/5
artworks in Hetain Patel: Don't Look at the Finger
Mark Rothko, Red on Maroon 1959
This is one of a series of large paintings Rothko made for a fashionable New York restaurant. By layering the paint, he created subtle relationships between the muted colours. They are much darker in mood than his previous works. He was influenced by the atmosphere of a library designed by the Italian artist Michelangelo (1475–1564). Rothko recalled the feeling of being ‘trapped in a room where all the doors and windows are bricked up’. A restaurant, he decided, was the wrong setting for these paintings. Instead, he presented the series to Tate gallery.
Gallery label, June 2020
4/5
artworks in Hetain Patel: Don't Look at the Finger
Mark Rothko, Red on Maroon 1959
This is one of a series of large paintings Rothko made for a fashionable New York restaurant. By layering the paint, he created subtle relationships between the muted colours. They are much darker in mood than his previous works. He was influenced by the atmosphere of a library designed by the Italian artist Michelangelo (1475–1564). Rothko recalled the feeling of being ‘trapped in a room where all the doors and windows are bricked up’. A restaurant, he decided, was the wrong setting for these paintings. Instead, he presented the series to Tate gallery.
Gallery label, June 2020
5/5
artworks in Hetain Patel: Don't Look at the Finger
Art in this room
Mark Rothko
Black on Maroon
1958
Mark Rothko
Black on Maroon
1959
Mark Rothko
Red on Maroon
1959
Mark Rothko
Red on Maroon
1959
Mark Rothko
Red on Maroon
1959