An excellent and
wide-ranging talk from Frances Morris, the Director of the Tate Modern. Due to
time constraints, I’ve just pulled out the most pertinent points to my own
practice.
Frances explained
that art history can only exist when it is activated in the present - "the
time is now", yet artists (and curators) can't only be inspired by modern
art and what is current now. We constantly search for new influences. Artists and
curators are "porous in their borders" and "travel in
time". Curators also seek to tell new stories, and Frances described experimenting
with cardboard shapes, representing objects to be displayed, to find new links
between them. She firmly believes in the power of objects to speak of emotions
and experiences.
The concepts of “travelling
in time” resonated for me with my own experiences during my urban wanderings,
when time seems to cease to move in a linear fashion and the past and present
become conflated. These objects that have been created in the past are given
new narratives, and effectively new life, when curated differently or when
brought together with other objects. This also spoke to me of my wanderings; by
coming into contact with new places, or by opening myself to new experiences, I
have found new narratives. As an artist creating visual narratives, my objects
don’t only speak of emotions and experiences; they are filled with emotions and
experiences through the act of my making them.
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| Frances Morris shows a slide of Helen Chadwick's work during the talk |
Frances has done a
great deal of work with living artists and I was delighted to hear that her
first studio visit was to one of my earliest influences, Helen Chadwick (now
sadly deceased). As Frances put it, Chadwick was "taking ownership of the
history of art as a woman". This agreed with some of my research into this
artist and her depictions of the embodied experience of being human. Although
these influences are not so overt in the work I'm currently doing, they are
still in there at a more subtle level. I've widened my own approach from
visually discussing mainly my own experiences to something which is less
individual, more general and possibly more accessible. Although Frances didn't
mention this, this is the way in which Chadwick developed and it was a really
good point in my practice to reflect on this. Thank you, Frances and Helen!
Frances went on to
talk about there being no women in art because there were no women in art
collections! Tate needed to expand and Frances based this in taking to artists.
This brings temporality back into the equation but as the artist draws
(literally and metaphorically) from multiple perspectives, this problem is
overcome. She also moved away from purely Western art and purely paintings,
helping to redefine fine art and introduce different interests. Extremely
powerful stuff and I was reminded of diversity of some of the pieces that
particularly struck me on my visit to Tate Modern in March (see this blogpage).
Frances has also
taken art outside the museum, and is interested in work outside commercial
spaces as a way of connecting with the community and with artists who are not
represented by the top galleries – which also brings back into play art by
women artists, who are likely to fall into that category. This idea of
connecting with the community is also of deep interest to her. Tate Modern is
an internationally renowned gallery, but she wants to embed it in Southwark and
bring it back to the local population there. Again, the idea of place and
space.
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