Everything about The Tate Modern totally explained
The
Tate Modern in
London is
Britain's national museum of international
modern art and is, with
Tate Britain,
Tate Liverpool,
Tate St Ives, and
Tate Online, part of the group now known simply as
Tate.
The galleries are housed in the former
Bankside Power Station, which was originally designed by Sir
Giles Gilbert Scott, the architect of
Battersea Power Station, and built in two stages between 1947 and 1963. The power station closed in
1981. The building was converted by architects
Herzog & de Meuron and contractors
Carillion, after which it stood at 99m tall. The southern third of the building was retained by the
French power company
EDF Energy as an
electrical substation (in 2006, the company released half of this holding).
Since the museum's opening on
12 May,
2000, it has become a destination for
Londoners and
tourists. Entry to collection displays and some temporary exhibitions is free.
The galleries
The Tate Collection is on display on levels three and five of the building, while level four houses large temporary exhibitions and a small exhibition space on level 2 houses work by contemporary artists. When the gallery opened in
2000, the collections were not displayed in chronological order but were rather arranged thematically into four broad groups:
History/Memory/Society;
Nude/Action/Body;
Landscape/Matter/Environment; and
Still Life/Object/Real Life. This was ostensibly because a chronological survey of the story of modern art along the lines of the
Museum of Modern Art in
New York would expose the large gaps in the collections, the result of the Tate's conservative acquisitions policy for the first half of the 20th century. The first rehang at Tate Modern opened in May
2006. It eschewed the thematic groupings in favour of focusing on pivotal moments of twentieth-century art, with further spaces allocated on levels 3 and 5 for shorter exhibitions. The layout is:
Level 3 - Material Gestures
This focuses on abstraction, expressionism and abstract expressionism, featuring work by Claude Monet, Anish Kapoor, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, Henri Matisse and Tacita Dean.
Level 3 - Poetry and Dream
Level 5 - Idea and Object
This focuses on minimalism, conceptual art and constructivism with work by artists such as Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Sol LeWitt, Martin Creed and Jenny Holzer.
Level 5 - States of Flux
This focuses on Cubism, Futurism, Vorticism and Pop Art, containing work by artists such as Pablo Picasso, Eugène Atget, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol.
The Turbine Hall
The
Turbine Hall (level 1), which once housed the electricity generators of the old power station, is five storeys tall with 3,400 square metres of floorspace. It is used to display specially-commissioned work by contemporary artists, between October and March each year in a series sponsored by
Unilever. This series was planned to last the gallery's first five years, but the popularity of the series has led to its extension until 2008.
The artists that have exhibited commissioned work in the turbine hall are:
One of the approaches to Tate Modern is across the
Millennium Bridge from
St Paul's Cathedral. The closest tube station is
Southwark, although
Waterloo station or
Blackfriars tube station and a short walk over
Blackfriars Bridge may be more convenient. The lampposts between Southwark tube station and the gallery are painted orange to show pedestrian visitors the way.
There is also a
riverboat pier just outside the gallery called
Bankside Pier, with connections to the
Docklands and
Greenwich via regular passenger boat services (commuter service) and the Tate to Tate service, which connects Tate Modern with Tate Britain via the
London Eye.
Extension for 2012
A glass pyramid extension dedicated to photography, video, exhibitions and the community, on the south side of the building, also designed by
Herzog & de Meuron, which will increase the display space by 60%, was granted planning permission on 27th March 2007. This project will cost approx. £215 million and is scheduled to open in 2012, in time for the
2012 Olympic Games being held in the city. The development is outlined at the subsite
Transforming Tate Modern
.
Gallery
Image:Wobbly_bridge_120600.jpg|In 2000 at the opening (and closing) of the Millennium Bridge
Image:Tate Modern and Lamp.jpg|In the early morning, seen from near Blackfriars
Image:Tate-modern-london.jpg|From the Millennium Bridge
Image:Tate Modern Cranes.JPG|Construction cranes forming an honour guard.
Image:tate.modern.interior.london.arp.jpg|A gallery
Image:TateMilleniumStPauls_GS.jpg|Millennium Bridge and St Paul's Cathedral from the Tate Modern
Image:Tate Modern.jpg|Chimney of Tate Modern. The Swiss Light at its top was designed by Michael Craig-Martin and the architects Herzog & de Meuron and was sponsored by the Swiss government. It was dismantled in May 2008.
Image:Tate Modern tower (2007).jpg|View looking up the chimney of Tate Modern
Image:tate.modern.turbine.hall.london.arp.jpg|The Turbine Hall. No art work was on display in the hall at the time (June 2005)
Image:Tatemodernpowerstation .jpg|Ólafur Elíasson's The Weather Project October 2003 - March 2004
Image:Tate.modern.weather.project.jpg|Ólafur Elíasson's The Weather Project in the Turbine Hall
Image:Whiteread tate 1.jpg|Rachel Whiteread's 2005 Embankment
Image:Test Site by Carsten Höller.jpg|Test Site by Carsten Höller (2006)
Image:Shibboleth Tate Modern.jpg|Shibboleth by Doris Salcedo (2007)
Image:Crack_admirer.jpg|At the deep end of 'The Crack' (Shibboleth) (2007)
Further Information
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