Tate today announced highlights of its programme for 2021, including solo exhibitions of Philip Guston, Petrit Halilaj, Lubaina Himid, Yayoi Kusama, Paula Rego, Auguste Rodin and Sophie Taeuber-Arp. The year will also see newly commissioned works by Heather Phillipson, Emily Speed and Anicka Yi, as well as landmark exhibitions exploring Britain’s relationship with the Caribbean and Hogarth’s depictions of 18th-century life.
Autumn 2020
As announced last week, this autumn will see Turner’s Modern World and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye at Tate Britain, Zanele Muholi and Bruce Nauman at Tate Modern, Don McCullin at Tate Liverpool, and Haegue Yang at Tate St Ives.
In addition, Tate Modern confirmed this week that its Andy Warhol exhibition will be extended for two more months and will now close on 15 November 2020, and that Ed Ruscha’s current ARTIST ROOMS display will be extended to July 2021. Tate Britain also announced that its annual Winter Commission will be undertaken by Chila Kumari Burman, opening for Diwali on 14 November 2020. The gallery’s ongoing Art Now series of contemporary exhibitions will return with Cooking Sections on 27 November 2020, and a new display to mark the 50th anniversary of Tate Archive will open on 12 October 2020. Tate Liverpool announced new dates for its upcoming Aliza Nisenbaum exhibition, which will now open on 15 December 2020, and will include a new commission that depicts key workers from the city.
Spring 2021
The spring season will begin at Tate Modern with a retrospective of one of America’s greatest modern painters, Philip Guston. Over a 50-year career, Guston bridged the personal and the political, the abstract and the figurative, the humorous and the tragic, creating some of the most influential paintings of the late 20th century. This will be followed by a rare chance to experience two of Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Rooms, immersive installations that transport the viewer into the artist’s unique vision of endless reflections.
The annual Tate Britain Commission will be unveiled in March, created this year by Heather Phillipson. Coinciding with her project for the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square, Phillipson’s work will transform the Duveen Galleries with a spectacular and other-worldly installation. Tate Liverpool will also host new installations in the spring as part of the Liverpool Biennial, the UK’s largest festival of contemporary art.
Summer 2021
Paula Rego, the acclaimed Portuguese-British artist of extraordinary imaginative power, will be the subject of a retrospective at Tate Britain in the summer. Rego has played a key role in redefining contemporary figurative art, particularly with her uncompromising representation of women. It will run alongside Hope. Struggle. Change: Photographing Britain and the ?World 1945-79, bringing together 300 powerful documentary photographs that tell the story of modern Britain, from conflicts and interventions abroad to migration and civil rights movements at home.
Tate Modern will celebrate two groundbreaking figures in modern art with major exhibitions. The EY Exhibition: The Making of Rodin will reveal Auguste Rodin as a radical artist, whose highly experimental works modelled in clay and plaster broke with century-long traditions and inaugurated a new age of sculpture. Sophie Taeuber-Arp will showcase the multidisciplinary work of one of the foremost abstract artists and designers of the 1920s and 30s, who challenged the boundaries between traditional crafts and modern art.
Tate Liverpool will also open a year-long free In Focus display of Lucian Freud’s paintings and prints. This will run alongside a major new project by artist Emily Speed, who was selected through Tate Liverpool’s inaugural Art North West open call. Tate St Ives will open a new exhibition by Kosovar artist Petrit Halilaj, whose installations explore cultural heritage and memory, often featuring animal forms that act as metaphors for transformation and discovery.
Autumn 2021
In the autumn, Anicka Yi’s Hyundai Commission for Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall will continue her ongoing exploration of the links between art and science and her use of unorthodox and experimental materials. Also at Tate Modern, a theatrical exhibition by the Turner Prize-winning artist Lubaina Himid will include recent work alongside highlights from across her influential career, often exploring overlooked and invisible aspects of social history and contemporary life.
Tate Britain will open two major group exhibitions exploring art’s connections to wider social and cultural history. Hogarth and Europe will show how 18th-century urban life was captured by William Hogarth in London alongside his contemporaries in Paris, Amsterdam and Venice. The exhibition will bring to life a vivid world of opportunity and enlightenment as well as materialism and exploitation. Britain and the Caribbean will be a landmark group exhibition spanning half a century, celebrating artists from the Caribbean who made their home in Britain, alongside later British artists who have made work addressing Caribbean themes and heritage.
Exhibition dates and further info over on the Tate website
