Tate Gallery Liverpool Research

Background;
In the 1980s Alan Bowman, then director of Tate, decided to create a ‘Tate of the North’, as the project became known. This would be a gallery with a distinct identity, dedicated to showing modern art and encouraging a new, younger audience through an active education programme.
A warehouse at the disused Albert Docking Liverpool was chosen as the site for the new gallery. The dock, once a bustling site crammed with rich cargos from Asia, tea, silk, tobacco and spirits, was derelict. In 1981 the dockyard underwent a rejuvenation, with the Maritime Museum leasing one of the warehouses and restaurants and bars opening.
In 1985, James Stirling was commissioned to design the new Tate Gallery at Liverpool. His designs left the exterior of the brick and stone building built over a colonnade of sturdy Doric columns almost untouched, but transformed the interior into an arrangement of simple, elegant galleries suitable for the display of modern art. It opened to the public in May 1988.
2008 marked the year Liverpoolwas named European Capital of Culture. To celebrate this, in 2007 the gallery hosted the Turner Prize, the first time the competition was held outside London. More than one million people a year visit Tate Liverpool, cementing its position as a venue for major European exhibitions of modern art.

Henry Tate;
In 1889 Henry Tate, an industrialist who had made his fortune as a sugar refiner, offered his collection of British art to the nation. There was no space for it in the National Gallery and the creation of a new gallery dedicated to British art was seen as a worthwhile aim and the search for a suitable site began. This gallery would house not only Henry Tate’s gift but also the works of British artists from various other collections.

Highlights of the Tate Collection;
DLA Piper Series;

DLA Piper Series: This Sculpture takes an ambitious and revolutionary look at the history of modern and contemporary sculpture. This new Tate collection display continues to examine and question the trajectory of artistic innovation in twentieth-century art and beyond.
Sculpture in the form of object, installation, assemblage and ready-made will sit alongside more surprising forms, such as painting, video, photography, language and performance.
In addition, key figures from the cultural arena have been invited to co-curate selected sections of the display. Artist Michael Craig-Martin, world renowned hat designer Philip Treacy and singer-songwriter and actress Marianne Faithfull offer their own inspiring interpretations of the Tate collection. Reflecting their own specialist practice, they present us with new ways of seeing and appreciating sculpture.
Philip Treacy’s section of the display, entitled Conversation Pieces, features artworks from his own private collection alongside specially selected works from the Tate collection, and explores the human form and human relations, mirroring in some ways his own design process. Works by Francis Bacon and Dorothy Cross representing the human figure are shown alongside the emotive abstract works of Joan Mitchell and Jackson Pollock. Central to the display and exhibition design are two artist films by Simon Martin and Haluk Akakçe. Dramatic, playful and quirky, they demonstrate Treacy’s humour, avant-garde interests and Pop sensibilities. Additional highlights include works by Vanessa Beecroft, Ellsworth Kelly and Andy Warhol.

Thresholds;

Thresholds questions the uncertain boundaries of personal, geographical, political and cultural identities. The exhibition explores powerful themes including British identity, migration and the global effects of regional conflicts.
Split into three sections, Thresholds displays works from the Tate collection.Stranger than Self explores how artists in the UK have responded to British identity in terms of its culture and history. Artists in this section raise questions about ‘quintessentially British’ notions of beauty and tranquillity, address the political nature of images constructed by mainstream media, and offer a wider context of contemporary Britain in its cultural expansion and inclusion.
Shifting Boundaries looks at mobility and migration in relation to globalisation. From tourism to shared tastes, the impact of worldwide travel is explored in works by Martin Parr, Eugenio Dittborn and Pak Sheung Chuen.
Territories in the Making addresses the political implications of regional conflicts and their global effects. Highlights include Yukonori Yanagi’s subtle critique of European imperialism, Pacific 1996, and insights into a banal side of Palestinian daily life by Yael Bartana, in Kings of the Hill 2003.

Turner Monet Twombly, later paintings;

This ambitious exhibition brings together works by J.M.W. Turner (1775–1851),Claude Monet (1840–1926) and Cy Twombly (1928–2011), three of the most prolific and well-known artists of all time. Turner Monet Twombly: Later Paintingsexplores the similarities between these artists in style, subject and artistic motivation during the last 20–30 years of their lives.
Turner Monet Twombly: Later Paintings will feature iconic works such as Monet’s fabulous Water Lilies and Turner’s much loved Romantic landscapes. The exhibition will also include a major work from Twombly’s vibrant and well-received series, Blooming: A Scattering of Blossoms and Other Things, shown in the UK for the first time.
Alongside Turner’s compelling, atmospheric works and the beautiful and emotive art of Monet, Twombly’s original contemporary style adds a fresh and exciting dimension to the exhibition. For those already familiar with the artists’ work, this exhibition is a revelation; for new audiences, it is a fascinating introduction. Not to be missed.

Chagall Modern Master;

Marc Chagall (1887–1985) is one of the great artists of the last century. Bringing together more than sixty paintings and a selection of works on paper from across the world, Chagall: Modern Master takes a fresh look at this compelling artist who created some of the most poetic and enduring images of the twentieth century. This exhibition will be the first major presentation of the Russian painter’s work in the UK for more than fifteen years.
The exhibition will explore Chagall’s development from the ‘naïve’ folkloristic narratives in his early work, towards his unique style combining fauve, cubist, expressionist and suprematist influences while reflecting his native Jewish Russian culture.
Chagall: Modern Master will focus on the artist’s time in Paris before the First world War, his visit to Berlin and his exhibition there in 1914, and the years he spent in his native Russia around the time of the Revolution in 1917. Chagall’s experiences during this period reinforced his highly personal visual language. The universal, timeless themes of these early works – including love, suffering and death – alongside self-portraits and depictions of the circus, music and peasants, recurred and formed the core of his art for the remainder of his long career.