Tate Collective

Check out our instagram @TateCollective to watch a video of Wendy’s work coming to life. 

10pm Saturday, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, 2012

​​'Couples', Edwina Sandys, 1974

Yass took the title Invisible City from Italo Calvino's book of the same name. The book is a sequences of essays describing fantastical imaginary cities fictionally recounted by Marco Polo to Kublai Kahn.

What's your favourite type of art? This is 'Untitled' by Fiona Rae. Rae’s paintings explore the balance between a controlling principle or concept and the unpredictability (and uncontrollable nature) of expression. ✴️〰️

Born into a Palestinian family in Beirut, and now resident in London, Mona Hatoum often addresses themes of identity and exile in her work. This video 'So Much I Want to Say' consists of still images of her face in close-up, with a pair of male hands covering her mouth which prevent her from speaking. 'My work is about my experience of living in the West as a person from the Third World, about being an outsider, about occupying a marginal position, being excluded, being defined as 'Other' or as one of 'Them', Hatoum has said. 📷✨

Mellor’s paintings act as a rebellion against the media industry’s colonisation of public consciousness in relation to attitudes towards women and towards celebrity.

Hambling made the painting slowly throughout 2016, a year in which the media’s portrayal of the European migrant crisis was a key factor in world events that followed. The title therefore relates both to the act of making and the political conditions which surrounded it. See the work in person at Tate Britain.

Rather than a celebration of the British Empire, Walker’s fountain explores the interconnected histories of Africa, America and Europe. She uses water as a key theme, referring to the transatlantic slave trade and the ambitions, fates and tragedies of people from these three continents. Fantasy, fact and fiction meet at an epic scale. There are only a few weeks left to see Walker’s incredible creation at Tate Modern (Closes 5 April 2020)

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In Zineb Sedira’s ‘Mother Tongue’ the artist, her mother and her daughter try to exchange childhood memories in their native languages: French, Arabic and English. Sedira was born in Paris to Algerian parents, and moved to London to study art, where her daughter was born. The work reflects on storytelling as a way to preserve cultural identity across generations. It underscores the difficulty of maintaining a shared heritage across national and linguistic divides and acknowledges the complexity of identity. Watch it at Tate Britain in the Sixty Years Gallery

'Typical historical accounts state that Carrington was in ‘turmoil of her sexuality’, displayed ‘a sense of intimidation by her own womanhood’ and had been ‘troubled by her sexuality’. We must also consider that none of these are true, and that she knew exactly who she was and what she wanted.' - Responses to works at Tate Britain by Tate's LGBTQ+ network. You can take a 'queer' walk through Tate Britain by using 'A Queer Walk Through British Art' on Tate's website.

Mood... ​'BLUE PURPLE TILT' by Jenny Holzer consists of seven tall and narrow LED signs leaning against the gallery wall at an equal distance from one another. Slogans run through the signs. The LED signage of 'BLUE PURPLE TILT' makes reference to the technology used in modern public advertising and warning signs. In her reference to everyday experiences and emotions, Holzer’s witty and provocative slogans offer a critical reflection on modern society.

This is ‘Bird in Hand’ by Ellen Gallagher. The undersea landscape is related to Gallagher’s imaginative exploration of the Middle Passage, the most treacherous part of the slave trading route between Africa and North America. The central figure is a black sailor or pirate with a peg leg. ‘I think of this painting as an origin myth of sorts, with a kind of evil doctor, perhaps related to Doctor Moreau or Frankenstein, at its centre’, Gallagher has said.

This is one of eight photographs from Carey Young’s Body Techniques series, made in 2007. In each photograph the artist wears a smart two-piece suit and is pictured alone in the centre of the image within a landscape featuring recently completed or half-finished construction projects in the cities of Dubai and Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. The actions that Young is seen performing make reference to artworks from the 1960s and 1970s that explored the relationship between the artist’s body and its surroundings.

Njideka Akunyili Crosby’s ‘Predecessors’ uses old family photos to create shadows, walls and skirting. It’s an interesting way of using photo collage in art to explore family.  

This is one of Jenny Holzer’s ‘Inflammatory Essays’. The tone of the ‘Inflammatory Essays’ is aggressive and challenging. The texts are the invention of the artist, although they do not necessarily reflect the artist's own views. From one Essay to another they ‘display a spectrum of views, from far-left to far-right. Read them all at Tate Modern, where they are displayed on Blavatnik Level 4 Concourse.