A new exhibition exploring the dynamic relationship between contemporary painting and photography- Capturing the Moment will open in June 2023. This group exhibition will unfold as an open-ended conversation between some of the greatest painters and photographers of recent generations, looking at how the brush and the lens have been used to capture moments in time, and how these two mediums have inspired and influenced each other.
The exhibition will be a rare opportunity to see extraordinary works from the YAGEO Foundation Collection, including paintings by Francis Bacon, Gerhard Richter and Peter Doig and photographs by Thomas Struth, Andreas Gursky and Hiroshi Sugimoto, shown in dialogue with many recent additions to Tate’s collection, including works by Lorna Simpson, John Currin, Laura Owens, Michael Armitage and Louise Lawler.
Capturing the Moment will begin with some of the most renowned expressive painters of the post-war period. Visitors will discover how the inventive and painterly realism of artists like Lucian Freud and Alice Neel developed alongside the emergence of documentary photography and ground-breaking photographers like Dorothea Lange. Francis Bacon’s Study for a Pope VI 1961 shows the role that photographic source material played for many artists, while Cecily Brown’s Trouble in Paradise 1999 and George Condo Mental States 2000 reveal the legacy of expressive figurative painting in a world of increasingly prevalent photographic images.
The exhibition will also show how the influence runs in the opposite direction, with a series of strikingly painterly photographs. These range from the dramatic large-scale tableaux of Jeff Wall’s A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai) 1993 and Andreas Gursky’s May Day IV 2000, to Pushpamala N’s playful take on grand history painting and Hiroshi Sugimoto’s atmospheric near-abstract seascapes. Photographs by Thomas Struth and Louise Lawler, capturing famous paintings on display and in storage, reveal another way in which the two mediums have found a home within each other.
The largest section of the exhibition will explore how painting and photography have converged, with a selection of major contemporary works which show how both art forms attempt to capture fleeting points in time or moments in history. Gerhard Richter’s photo-realist paintings such as Two Candles 1982 and Aunt Marianne 1965 encapsulate one approach to this, alongside later works by Luc Tuymans and Wilhelm Sasnal. Pop artists like Richard?Hamilton, Andy Warhol, Robert?Rauschenberg and Pauline?Boty offer another approach, incorporating and collaging photographic images in their paintings, as can also be seen in Lorna Simpson’s Then & Now 2016 and Njideka Akunyili Crosby’s Predecessors 2013.
Key works by Lisa Brice, Miriam Cahn, Peter Doig, Marlene Dumas, David Hockney and Paulina?Olowska show yet more ways in which the style, composition, content and meaning of contemporary painting exists in dialogue with photography. And as screen-based images become ever more ubiquitous, recent canvases by Laura Owens, Christina Quarles and Salman Toor offer a glimpse of how digital media is now reshaping the way painters work today.
List of artists– Michael Armitage, Francis Bacon, Georg Baselitz, Pauline Boty, Lisa Brice, Cecily Brown, Miriam Cahn, George Condo, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, John Currin, Peter Doig, Marlene Dumas, Jana Euler; Lucian Freud; Andreas Gursky; Richard Hamilton; David Hockney; Candida Höfer; Dorothea Lange; Louise Lawler; Marwan (Marwan Kassab-Bachi); Alice Neel; Paulina Olowska; Laura Owens; Pablo Picasso; Pushpamala N.; Christina Quarles; Robert Rauschenberg; Paula Rego; Gerhard Richter; Wilhelm Sasnal; Joan Semmel; Lorna Simpson; Thomas Struth; Hiroshi Sugimoto; Salman Toor; Luc Tuymans; Jeff Wall; Andy Warhol.
Capturing the Moment, 14th June 2023 – 28th January 2024, Tate Modern, Bankside, London SE1 9TG tate.org.uk
About the YAGEO Foundation
The YAGEO Foundation is a non-profit organisation founded by Taiwanese entrepreneur Pierre Chen. Established in 1999, the Foundation is dedicated to promoting art and culture through the sponsorship of exhibitions, research and educational programmes. The Foundation aims to foster dialogue between East and West and thrives to integrate art into everyday life. Pierre Chen is the chairman and founder of the global passive component leader YAGEO Corporation. Outside of the tech industry and his art collection, Pierre is best known for his passion and influence in the lifestyle industry worldwide, including art, interior design, hospitality, food and wine, jewellery, and others.
