Late at Tate Britain: Acts of Legacy

How do we create legacy and value around an artwork? What is the role of memory in reflecting the past? And how might the past influence the future? New Work Network has programmed an evening of performances, films, installation, music and debate to explore the issues surrounding legacy, value, sustainability and memory of experimental and ephemeral arts practices.

Tate Britain will stay open until 22.00. You can explore the collection displays, see the Turner Prize 2012, Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Guarde and Art Now: Jess Flood-Paddock exhibitions or enjoy a drink at the pay bar. 

Download the programme 

Hosted by Richard Layzell and Hunt & Darton

In an uncertain world, it's reassuring to be in the presence of one who knows the way. Richard Layzell, the evening’s host and visionary leader will assume the persona of Dave Dudley, to deliver an extraordinary performance-lecture in the Clore Auditorium. Alongside him, Hunt & Darton will act as encompassing hosts with their spontaneous, witty and awkward style of service, moves, poetry and signage. 

Bodies Of Memory  
by Fiona Templeton 

Performance burns up in its very performing and is gone. Its legacy may rely on the act of remembering. For Bodies of Memory, Tate Britain is inhabited by the collective recollections of many past performances, performed and spoken in passing fragments, rising and disappearing like memory itself. Its participants are an intergenerational group of performers, artists, writers, curators: people who witnessed something being done.

Veneration X
by Jordan McKenzie and Aaron Williamson

This durational performance addresses the legacy of the 'art-temple.' In the guise of white-gowned supplicants and ignoring the purpose of the works – to be looked at – McKenzie and Williamson lie face down in veneration of the ‘words from on high’ around the walls, lost in the ecstasy and euphoria emanating from the unseen canvases and plinths.

The Redistribution Of Wealth 
by Ellie Harrison alongside a playlist of music created by Barby Asante

How can we map the value attributed to art and culture in our society? Ellie Harrison’s The Redistribution of Wealth retells the history of governments' spending on the arts and tracks the scale and distribution of funds from the 1946 birth of the Arts Council of Great Britain to the present climate of cutbacks. Barby Asante continues her investigation of the impact of music on identity with a special playlist from the years of the Arts Council's existence. 

Mixing It Up: An Intergenerational Perspective 

This series of six films documents dialogues between artists from different generations and explores from both a practical and critical perspective the ways in which they have sustained their respective practices. All dialogues were filmed by Fiona Melville.

Dialogues include:

Ellie Harrison – Jordan McKenzie
Robbie Lockwood – Stefan Szczelkun
Yoko Ishiguro – Fiona Templeton
Barby Asante – Sonia Boyce
Hunt & Darton – Richard Layzell
Katharine Meynell –  Aaron Williamson

• Watch the Mixing It Up dialogue between Hunt & Darton and Richard Layzell on YouTube

LATE AT TATE LEGACY DEBATE
by The Saturday Arts Club

Which side will you take? Facilitated by The Saturday Arts Club, the Late at Tate Legacy Debate is an audience-driven discussion on the subject of legacy. Wes and Adam host this 75-minute taboo-free zone which tackles the provocative and difficult questions facing contemporary arts practice.

The Saturday Arts Club is a fortnightly, contemporary arts podcast that sometimes features a quiz. Amongst news, reviews, analysis and tangential stupidity, hosts Wes and Adam dissect the current crop of artistic offerings, covering art, theatre, performance, installation, film, comics, and all other kinds of shiny things.