Tate Britain

David Tremlett Drawing for Free Thinking

• 19 September 2011 — 31 December 2016 *on now

Drawing for Free Thinking is a new wall drawing for Tate Britain, designed to wrap around the Manton stairwell. Inspired by the long tradition of twentieth-century constructivism and by David Tremlett’s involvement in conceptual art in the 1970s, Drawing for Free Thinking consists of broad blocks of strong colour, straight lines, squares and rectangles. It explores floor plans and architectural features the artist has encountered at the gallery such as doorways or windows abstracted into geometric shapes. Tremlett and his team of assistants work with pastel crayons which they rub directly onto the wall with the palms of their hands.

Admission

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/david-tremlett-drawing-free-thinking

BP Spotlight: Keith Arnatt

• 11 March 2013 — 11 August 2016 *on now

Keith Arnatt was a British conceptual artist who used photography as a way of documenting perfromative acts that question the status of art and the role of the artist. Using recent acquisitions, this display will show the range of Arnatt’s work and his singular use of photography, focusing on his work of the 1970s and 1980s.

Suitable for

Admission

BP Spotlight: The Nature of Common Life: Drawing the Everyday 1800–60

• 1 January — 2 November 2014 *on now

Drawing heavily on the Oppé Collection of works on paper, this display highlights the preoccupation with everyday life seen in the work of early nineteenth-century artists such as William Mulready, JMW Turner, John Varley and David Wilkie.

The works, in a range of media and including several never before displayed, demonstrate artists’ compulsion to observe and depict the world around them, from the bustle of street life to the intimacy of the family home.

Suitable for

• Any age

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/display/bp-spotlight-nature-common-life

Tate Britain Commission 2014: Phyllida Barlow

• 31 March — 2 November 2014 *on now

Sculptor Phyllida Barlow will unveil her largest and most ambitious work in London to date for the Tate Britain Commission 2014, supported by Sotheby’s, on 31 March 2014. The annual commission invites artists to make work in response to Tate’s collection of British and international art and to the grand spaces of the Duveen Galleries at the heart of Tate Britain.

For over four decades Phyllida Barlow has made imposing, large scale sculptural installations using inexpensive, everyday materials such as cardboard, fabric, timber, polystyrene, plaster, scrim and cement. Her distinctive work is focused on her experimentation with these materials, to create bold and colourful three-dimensional collages.

Drawing on memories of familiar objects from her surroundings, Barlow’s tactile and seemingly unstable sculptures often contrast with the permanence and traditions of monumental sculpture.

Suitable for

• Any age

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/tate-britain-commission-2014-phyllida-barlow

BP Spotlight: Forgotten Faces

• 7 April — 12 October 2014 *on now

Forgotten Faces turns the clock back a hundred years to discover portraits and figure paintings that were once the stars of the Tate Gallery but later fell into disregard as their subjects were forgotten. Offering an insight into the Edwardian world, taste, and the gallery’s history of collecting, it will include Charles Wellington Furse’s Diana of the Uplands, which once rivalled Millais’sOphelia in popularity.

Many of the works on show have been in store for several decades, two of which - Emil Fuchs’s portrait of Sir Joseph Duveen and James Havard Thomas’s bust of Mrs Wertheimer - have been restored especially for this display.

Suitable for

• Any age

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/display/bp-spotlight-forgotten-faces

BP Spotlight: The Craze for Pastel

• 7 April — 5 October 2014 *on now

The Craze for Pastel marks Tate’s recent acquisition of Ozias Humphrey’s pastel portrait Baron Nagell’s Running Footman c.1795, a rare example of an 18th century portrait of an identifiable black Briton.

This display will explore the emergence of pastel in the 18th century and its phenomenal success as a fashionable alternative to oil paint. Tracing its evolution from natural chalk – long used for figure and landscape sketches – into a full colour medium, the display will include many rarely exhibited collection works.

Experimental pastel drawings by Thomas Gainsborough sit alongside finished portraits by leading pastellists such as John Russell and Daniel Gardner. The display aims to demonstrate the central importance of the medium to the increasingly competitive world of 18th-century British art.

Suitable for

• Any age

BP Spotlight: Source

• 7 April — 14 September 2014 *on now

Source is curated by Tate Collective London, a group of young creatives aged 15 to 25 years. It will be the first display at Tate Britain curated by and for young people.

The display will explore the connections between the dense 19th century ‘salon hang,’ and the visual culture seen in the digital world today on platforms such as Tumblr, Instagram and Pinterest.

The display will include Tate collection works by Patrick Caulfield, Edward Paolozzi and Sarah Lucas, alongside user-generated online content, provoking questions about the historical value of originality and authenticity.

Suitable for

• Any age

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/display/bp-spotlight-source

BP Spotlight: Alan Davie

• 14 April — 5 October 2014 *on now

Alan Davie (b. 1920) was one of the first post-war British artists to develop an expressive form of abstraction.

This display brings together paintings from Tate’s collection and seldom-seen material from the artist’s archive. His kaleidoscopic canvases, the result of an improvisatory process that the artist relates to his love of jazz, form a complex web of imagery that evokes a magical world of imagination and personal mythology. As well as harnessing his interest in Zen Buddhism and the mystical world of primitive signs and symbols, Davie’s canvases emphasise the materiality of paint and the physical gesture of the artist, their dense networks of unconscious forms overlapping and obscuring others until the final composition is resolved.

Suitable for

• Any age

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/display/bp-spotlight-alan-davie

BP Spotlight: Chris Killip

• 21 April — 28 September 2014 *on now

The photographer Chris Killip (b. 1946) helped shape our visual memory of Britain in the late 1970s and 1980s.This display will include some of most significant series. These include the artist’s first series of portraits and landscapes taken in his native Isle of Man, portraying Manx work and culture.

Shown in contrast are Killip’s widely acclaimed photographs of the north east of England: stark black and white images highlighting the decline of the manufacturing towns and of the docks and the social disintegration and hardship that ensued.

Key images depicting coastal communities living in Skinningrove and Lynemouth during the early 1980s are also included in the display, along with a series of photographs of the workers at the Pirelli factory in Burton.

Suitable for

• Any age

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/display/bp-spotlight-chris-killip

BP Spotlight: Andrea Büttner

• 21 April — 12 October 2014 *on now

The work of Andrea Büttner (born 1972) encompasses woodcuts, glass painting, sculpture, video and performance. She creates connections between art history and social or ethical issues, with a particular interest in notions of poverty, shame and dignity.

A key work in the display, the video Little Sisters: Lunapark Ostia 2012, focuses on a sisterhood of nuns who manage an arcade in a small amusement park in Ostia, near Rome. In it, the nuns speak about their work and respond to questions posed by Büttner concerning happiness, spirituality and spectacle.

Suitable for

• Any age

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/display/bp-spotlight-andrea-buttner

BP Spotlight: Bodies of Nature

• 28 April — 19 October 2014 *on now

Bodies of Nature includes works made between 1780 and 1840 of nymphs, satyrs and other mythological beings. In a period marked by revolutions, catastrophic wars and social and political unrest, these artworks provided an alternative to the austere idealism and morality of traditional high art.

Suitable for

• Any age

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/display/bp-spotlight-bodies-nature

Kenneth Clark

• 20 May — 10 August 2014 *on now

This exhibition explores the impact of art historian, public servant and broadcaster Kenneth Clark (1903–1983), widely seen as one of the most influential figures in British art of the twentieth century.

Clark’s role as a patron and collector, art historian, public servant and broadcaster is explored and celebrated, along with his contribution to bringing art in the twentieth century to a more popular audience.

The exhibition focuses predominantly on Clark’s activities in the 1930s and 1940s when he was a leading supporter and promoter of contemporary British art and artists. Using his own wealth to help artists, Clark would not only buy works from those he admired but also provides financial support to allow them to work freely, offered commissions, and worked to ensure artists’ works entered prestigious collections.

Suitable for

• Any age

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/kenneth-clark

Reception, Rupture and Return: The Model and the Life Room

• 26 May — 12 October 2014 *on now

Reception, Rupture and Return: The Model and the Life Room examines the role of the life model for the artist and the changing status of life drawing from the 19th to the 21st centuries.

The display will include unique perspectives of three artists' models from the Tate archive. It will explore themes such as the model as a person, as a political vehicle, as a challenger to convention, and the rethinking of the model during the inter-war and post-war periods.

Suitable for

• Any age

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/display/reception-rupture-and-return-model-and-life-room

The Darks: Ruth Ewan and Astrid Johnston

• 6 June — 30 November 2014 *on now

Playing on the format of a museum audio guide, The Darks audio tour invites visitors to navigate the area around Tate Britain, once the site of the infamous Millbank Prison.

The original plan for Millbank Prison, which opened in 1816, was for a Panopticon. The design for such a building, conceived by Jeremy Bentham in the late 18thcentury, would allow a single watchman to observe all inmates of an institution.

The Panopticon has long been a byword for absolute power, discipline and control. The Darks audio tour touches on the utopian dream at its heart, and how this optimism switched into the hellish reality of what followed.

Narrated by Carolyn Pickles, this audio guide also features real and fictional accounts of passers-by, including novelist Charles Dickens and writer and reformer Henry Mayhew, inmates such as Irish political prisoner Dennis B Cashman (who was transported to Australia from Millbank) and one-time prison governor, Arthur Griffiths.

Words scratched onto coins by unknown prisoners are also heard among the fragmented voices that make up The Darks.

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/darks-ruth-ewan-and-astrid-johnston

British Folk Art

• 10 June — 7 September 2014 *on now

Folk Art is an established subject in many countries; however in Britain the genre remains elusive. Rarely considered in the context of art history, ‘Folk art’ has been viewed as part of social history or folklore studies. This show unites an extraordinary selection of objects, exploring the threshold between art and artefact and challenging perceptions of ’high art’.

The exhibition includes surprising and diverse examples of British folk art, from rustic leather Toby jugs to brightly coloured ships’ figureheads and highly-accomplished carousel horses. The imposing larger than life-size thatched figure of King Alfred created by a master thatcher, Joseph Myatt, in 1960 is just one of the highlights of the exhibition.

While much Folk Art is anonymous, this exhibition also presents works by a number of prominent individuals. Amongst these key figures are George Smart the tailor of Frant, eminent embroiderer Mary Linwood, ship carver and fairground artist Arthur Andersen and Cornish painter Alfred Wallis.

Suitable for

• Any age

Admission

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/british-folk-art

A four-room display bringing together a selection of Louise Bourgeois' prints, drawings and books from different points of her career.

Suitable for

• Family friendly

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern

For the first time at Tate Modern, Sunday evenings will be set aside for a quieter exhibition viewing experience of Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs, with visitor numbers restricted from 20:00-22:30

Suitable for

• Family friendly

Admission

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern

Spanning the artist’s career from the early 1950s to 2007, works will be drawn from Lucien Freud’s private collection of Auerbach’s work.

Suitable for

• Family friendly

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-britain

An exciting chance to see Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs out of hours during the final weekend of the show.

Suitable for

• Family friendly

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern

Eliasson has investigated JMW Turner’s use of light and colour, abstracting the hues of seven of his paintings into dynamic colour studies.

Suitable for

• Family friendly

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-britain

Late Turner: Painting Set Free

• 10 September 2014 — 25 January 2015

Late Turner: Painting Set Free reassesses Turner’s extraordinary body of work during his final period (1835–50) when some of his most celebrated works were created.

Beginning in 1835, the year that Turner reached 60, and closing with his last exhibits at the Royal Academy in 1850, the exhibition demonstrates how his closing years were a time of exceptional energy and vigour, initiated by one of his most extensive tours of Europe. Bringing together 150 works from the UK and abroad, it seeks to challenge assumptions around the idea of the ‘elderly’ artist, as well as his radical techniques, processes and materials during this productive time.

Featuring many large-scale oil paintings alongside drawings, prints and watercolour, the exhibition addresses the sheer range of materials and techniques he embraced. The show also includes such iconic works as Ancient Rome; Agrippina Landing with the Ashes of Germanicus exh. 1839, The Wreck Buoy 1849 and Heidelberg: Sunset c.1840 (Manchester City Galleries).

Suitable for

• Any age

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/late-turner-painting-set-free

Christina, specialist in Russian modernism and contributor to the Malevich exhibition catalogue, takes us on an hour-long tour of this first major Malevich retrospective for almost 25 years.

Suitable for

• Family friendly

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern

COMMON PROJECTS: Call for participants for new teachers' group, Tate Modern and Tate Britain

• 16 September 2014 5-8pm
• 11 November 2014 5-8pm

Tate London Schools and Teachers team are inviting a group of 10-15 teachers to work with us, alongside artists, curators and educators, to form a collaborative community of shared practice. Through a series of conversations, workshops and interventions, Common Projects will develop an ongoing dialogue around art and education, where multiple voices, ideas and approaches are held in one room.

If you are interested in joining Common Projects please send a statement of interest, no longer than 250 words detailing why you would like to be part of the group and what you would like to contribute.

Please include your name, role and school. We welcome applications from teachers from all types of school settings and levels of experience including trainee teachers.

We are interested in teachers who:

- Have an interest in sharing their practice
- Have a desire to discuss current issues and debates in art and education in a group environment
- Are able to commit to six sessions across the academic term
- Are able to commit to one Tate London Schools and Teachers CPD event; (bursary place awarded)
- Have an appetite to participate in relevant events outside of six required sessions

2014 Session Dates

1. Monday 17 February - 10.00-14.00 including lunch
2. Tuesday 25 March - 17.00-20.00
3. Tuesday 13 May - 17.00-20.00
4. Tuesday 8 July - 17.00-20.00
5. Tuesday 16 September - 17.00-20.00
6. Tuesday 11 November - 17.00-20.00

Admission

Take a guided tour through the Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs exhibition at Tate Modern.

Suitable for

• Family friendly

Admission

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern

Become absorbed in an unexpected audio environment, listen to the sounds of a sculpture or the hidden noises of Tate Modern by night.

Suitable for

Admission

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern

Drop-in to the Families Welcome Room for fun activities designed by artists just for you

Suitable for

• Family friendly

Admission

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern

Drop into Open Studio to spend time testing out some of the materials and processes associated with Tate Britain’s major exhibition British Folk Art.

Suitable for

• Family friendly

Admission

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-britain

Pick up activities inspired by Tate Britain’s major exhibition British Folk Art devised by artists and exploring how stories are put together, including a Sonic Trail and paper-based activity.

Suitable for

• Family friendly

Admission

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-britain

The Family Gallery brings Matisse's cut-outs to life in a whole new way through specially commissioned sound, animation and sculptural works

Suitable for

• Family friendly

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern

an evening of spoken word and sound from some of the UK’s leading and emerging storytellers and musicians, inspired by Tate collection.

Suitable for

• Family friendly

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-britain

A series of live events over five nights at Tate Britain. Via an online portal, the public will be able to control robots and roam the galleries in search of 500 years of British art.

Suitable for

• Family friendly

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-britain

If objects could talk what stories would they tell? Join us throughout August at Tate Britain to explore storytelling and craft-inspired activities linked to the British Folk Art exhibition.

Suitable for

• Family friendly

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-britain

Spectacle: a screening and discussion with Robin Deacon and Joshua Sofaer

• 12 September 2014 6:30-8:45pm

Tate Britain, Clore Auditorium
Friday 12 September 2014, 18.30 – 20.45

A screening of the film Spectacle: A Portrait of Stuart Sherman (2013) by artist Robin Deacon followed by a discussion between Deacon and artist Joshua Sofaer.

Spectacle: A Portrait of Stuart Sherman, Deacon’s first full-length feature film, represents a major departure from his established practice. It includes Deacon’s re-enactments of Sherman’s work, as well as exclusive interviews with his colleagues, collaborators and friends.

This event is a great opportunity to hear two of Britain’s most exciting live artists, reflecting on the legacy of the late Stuart Sherman – an underexposed, but hugely influential, figure in the history of performance art.

Admission

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/film/spectacle-screening-and-discussion

Lisa Squirrel leads an audio descriptive tour of The EY Exhibition: Late Turner – Painting Set Free.

Suitable for

• Family friendly

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-britain

Andrea Büttner talks about her current display at Tate Britain and explores notions of poverty, shame, vulnerability and dignity and the belief systems that underpin them.

Suitable for

Admission

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-britain

Meet Tate Britain With Alys Fowler

• 15 September 2014 6:30-8pm

Join Alys for this horticulturally themed tour looking at hidden or incidental flowers and weeds in Tate Britain’s collection displays.

By exploring their meaning and historical context, this tour encourages us to reimagine the paintings and their meanings.

Are the flora symbolic or designed to show off the artists’ talents? What do they tell us about the status of imported or native plants, new social trends and other forms of meaning?

Followed by Q and A.

Suitable for

• 18+

Admission

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/talks-and-lectures/meet-tate-britain-alys-fowler

The Tate Britain Commission 2014 sees sculptor Phyllida Barlow take over the Duveen Galleries. Join Martin Glover for a British Sign Language tour of this work.

Suitable for

• Family friendly

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-britain

This workshop explores dance as a premise to refuse comfort, emotion and music in favour of collision, maximum velocity and gravity as enhancements of – rather than inhibitions to – performance.

Suitable for

• Family friendly

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern

Mehmet Sander’s work challenges people’s habitual ideas of what a dance should be like. His work aims to provoke thought and push boundaries, reflecting reality rather than offering an escape.

Suitable for

• Family friendly

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern

This event explores the idea of how the public and institutions work together to create performative events.

Suitable for

• Family friendly

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern

Artist Phyllida Barlow talks to Frances Morris, Head of Collections, International Art at Tate, about the work she has made for this year's Tate Britain commission.

Suitable for

• Family friendly

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-britain