About the Tate Modern Walk in London
The Tate Modern is the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art and our tour is not only a perfect starting point for anyone who hopes to get their head around 20th century art – a period that saw a proliferation of different artistic movements and styles – but also a wonderfully stimulating challenge to the way we traditionally think about the world, whether it be how we perceive things, what reality or truth is, or what does it mean to be a human being...to name but a few!
An exploration to the Tate Modern
We will begin by discussing the history of the Tate and the opening of the gallery in the year 2000 in a disused power station along with the complex conversion of the building from power station to gallery. We will also look into the history of the area, Southwark, and its historical associations with entertainment and industry. Once inside we will spend some time in the Turbine Hall and consider the current Unilever installation before moving into the permanent collecti
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The Tate Modern is the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art and our tour is not only a perfect starting point for anyone who hopes to get their head around 20th century art – a period that saw a proliferation of different artistic movements and styles – but also a wonderfully stimulating challenge to the way we traditionally think about the world, whether it be how we perceive things, what reality or truth is, or what does it mean to be a human being...to name but a few!
An exploration to the Tate Modern
We will begin by discussing the history of the Tate and the opening of the gallery in the year 2000 in a disused power station along with the complex conversion of the building from power station to gallery. We will also look into the history of the area, Southwark, and its historical associations with entertainment and industry. Once inside we will spend some time in the Turbine Hall and consider the current Unilever installation before moving into the permanent collection. As we move round the gallery we will discuss the Tate Modern's ground-breaking hang, which challenges the convention of displaying art chronologically and is instead organised around four wings each centered on a seminal artistic moments in the 20th century.
On our tour through 20th century art, we will discuss why styles and movements proliferated at this time and examine different artists and works in relation to not only the artistic tradition but also to the socio-political climate of the period. We will begin with early challenges to traditional modes of painting, focussing on Cubism, pioneered by Picasso and Braque, which questioned the way in which we perceive things alongside the works of the colourist Henri Matisse, who wanted his art to have the effect of a good armchair on a tired businessman. The Tate has one of the finest Surrealist collections in the world, and in relation to works by Dali, Magritte and Miro, we will discuss the beginnings of the movement in the 1920s, its attempts to produce an art of the unconscious as well as how it questions our ideas about reality. Giacometti's sculptures of slender figures will begin an inquiry into how the trauma of World War I and II affected modes of representing the human figure and as well as the relationship between art and humanity. We will also look at Marcel Duchamp's radical use of unconventional materials and readymade objects in the early 1900s and its influence on mid-20th century artists such as Andy Warhol representing Pop Art, which questions consumer culture; Joseph Beuys representing Conceptual Art's emphasis of idea over object; and Donald Judd representing Minimalism, with its strongly abstracted works using modern, industrial materials. Last but not least we will examine works by contemporary practitioners, considering not only their context, but also how they fit into the trajectory of 20th century art.
