Tate's 2024 blockbusters revealed
Gallery group unveils all its major shows for next year
*In partnership with ATS
Also in this edition: British Museum plagiarism row, Constable on tour, Venice Biennale’s theme revealed, Museum of Ice Cream is back
Happy Friday.
I was lucky enough to go to a preview of the newly-revamped National Portrait Gallery this week. And what a glow-up! It really didn’t disappoint. My biggest take-away (apart from how great it was to be reunited with some of the most famous paintings in the world) was what a brilliant, bright, welcoming space it is to spend time in. I thoroughly recommend going and just wandering around, drinking it in. And then of course, go and drink the offerings in their new late-night Audrey Green cocktail bar. I didn’t manage to do that, so I’ll definitely be back. And if you’re wondering what the actual experts — the art critics — think, then it’s fair to say some loved it. And some very much didn’t. Can’t win em all!
A big thank you to everyone who voted in my poll last week when I asked you which city I should go to for a museum-filled weekend break. After dozens of votes… it was a dead heat between Florence and Madrid! With Paris just 3% behind! So I hear you loud and clear: I need to go to all three!!
So while I spend the evening parting with my money on Skyscanner, you can read on for this week’s news.
Maxwell
Need To Know
2024 at Tate
Tate has revealed its exhibition plans for 2024.
Most eye-catching is a major solo exhibition on the art, music and activism of 90-year-old Yoko Ono. Opening in February at Tate Modern, it will span her more than six decades of work. In April it will be joined by Expressionists, showcasing more than 100 works from the movement’s leading artists including Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky, German painter Gabriele Munter and German painter Franz Marc.
At Tate Britain, Sargent And Fashion will look at how the painter John Singer Sargent styled his subjects and used fashion to “express their identity and personality”. Mary Beale, Angelica Kauffman, Elizabeth Butler and Dame Laura Knight’s will also be among the highlights of Women Artists In Britain 1520-1920 opening in May.
Tate St Ives will begin the year by staging the UK’s first large-scale exhibition of work by Outi Pieski, while Tate Liverpool will remain closed for the year for major development. (Read more)
Naming rights
It’s the largest national cultural project in the UK since Tate Modern opened in 2000. And that doesn’t come cheap. That’s why a hugely anticipated new cultural hub in Manchester is going to be named after an insurance company.
The £210m flagship building — known until this week as Factory International — will now be called Aviva Studios after the insurance giant Aviva acquired naming rights for a reported £35m. Unsurprisingly, it makes it one of the UK’s biggest cultural corporate sponsorship deals.
Manchester city council needed the naming rights cash because of rising costs. The building’s original budget in 2017 was £110m — last year it was revealed that it’s now £210.8m. It officially opens in October but a Yayoi Kusama exhibition opens this summer. (Read more)
Plagiarism row
A row over copyright has engulfed the British Museum this week, and one that has seen personal attacks directed at the museum’s staff.
It began on Tuesday when the museum removed a segment of its China’s hidden century exhibition after writer Yilin Wang said on Twitter they did not receive any credit or reimbursement for some of their poetry translations. The original tweet clocked up 4.3 million views. Yesterday, the British Museum said it had apologised for the “unintentional human error” and “offered financial payment” to Wang.
But the museum’s statement also hit back at the personal attacks and vilification that had been directed towards the exhibition’s staff on social media and in direct emails since the row erupted. “This is unacceptable,” they said, and that “We stand behind our colleagues fully and request those responsible for these personal attacks to desist.” Wang said “The public statement does not feel sincerely apologetic in my opinion.” (Read more)
Game-changing tech
*In partnership with ATS
Have you or your museum been thinking about digitising your collection? It can definitely feel daunting, especially for smaller organisations.
Digitising your museum’s remarkable objects has three main benefits:
It provides a detailed record to support your preservation and conservation missions
It allows better access for research
It produces richer ways your visitors can interact with works both on-site or online
To be fair, you may already know this.
But what you may not know, is that the latest technology now allows digitisation to include full 3D digital facsimiles. These can be created through object scanning which takes just 30 minutes, when previously it took days.
So this means digital 3D reproductions of extraordinary detail are now accessible to smaller organisations with smaller budgets. It's a game-changer.
If you’re ready to make the leap to open up your collection through digitisation, this upcoming FREE webinar will tell you how ATS will help you do it. (Register here, or email corrina.hickman@ats-heritage.co.uk for more info)
News from the UK
Divas descend | The V&A’s DIVA exhibition opens tomorrow and it’s been revealed that five famous fashion looks by Rihanna will be part of the display, including the 2023 Oscars dress that showcased her pregnancy bump. Meanwhile, divas descended on the museum for the annual glitzy summer party. Dame Shirley Bassey and Victoria Coren-Mitchell were on the guest-list, and the Sugababes performed. (Read more)
On tour | A masterpiece by Constable has just gone on display in Tyne and Wear — in a shopping centre. It’s the latest work from the National Gallery’s collection to go on a summer tour to unusual locations. The Cornfield is now on show in an empty store in the town of Jarrow until Sunday, before it’ll go to other yet-to-be-revealed unexpected locations. (Read more)
Up late | Tate Modern is launching a new late-night cocktail bar. Corner, launching in July, will have a terrace opening out onto the Southbank, and will serve small plates and drinks from British producers. It will open until 11pm. With this following the National Portrait Gallery’s new bar, finally UK museums are seeing the opportunities of late night! (Read more)
Slavery links | An exhibition by the Fitzwilliam Museum will explore Cambridge’s connections to enslavement for the first time. It’ll feature works made in west Africa, the Caribbean, South America and Europe, and will interrogate the ways slavery shaped the University of Cambridge’s collections. The Fitzwilliam’s Director said it was was “an important moment” in the museum’s history. (Read more)
Museum move | The UK's only museum dedicated to the history of peace and peacemakers is to move to a new, bigger venue after a successful fundraising campaign. The Peace Museum will relocate from Bradford to Saltaire in Shipley. A National Lottery Heritage Grant of just over £245,000 is helping the move, and helping the museum’s reopening next year. (Read more)
News from around the world
Italy | Next year sees the 60th Art Biennale in Venice, and it’s been revealed it’ll explore the notion of the foreigner. Titled “Foreigners Everywhere” it will look at those on the margins, namely exiles, émigrés, and outsiders. Adriano Pedrosa is leading it, and is the first Biennale curator ever to hail from the Southern Hemisphere. It opens in April. (Read more)
Uruguay | Plans to melt down and recast a huge Nazi sculpture of an eagle holding a swastika into a peace dove have been scrapped within 48 hours of being announced. President Luis Lacalle Pou announced the U-Turn after thousands signed a petition saying it should go to a museum instead. The controversial statue — subject to many legal battles — was found on a sunken German warship in Uruguayan waters in 2006. (Read more)
UAE | Louvre Abu Dhabi has acquired three new works by Pablo Picasso. They were acquired directly from the artist's family, a process that was years in the making. The 1911 painting Woman Holding a Mandoline and the 1923 Portrait of a Seated Woman (Olga) have just been put on display. Also newly on show at the Louvre are monumental sculptural works on loan from Versailles. (Read more)
USA | A California man has been found guilty of illegally importing an ancient mosaic from war-torn Syria. The mosaic, which depicts a tale from mythology in which Hercules rescues Prometheus, dates to the Roman Empire. It arrived as part of a container shipment from Turkey, labelled as tiles worth $600, but its true value is estimated at $450,000 (Read more)
Best of the rest
🔗 Sculptor Nick Hornby has three major public commissions coming to London in prominent locations this year. The first — inspired by Richard I — has just been unveiled.
🔗 A trio of female skateboarders have been granted permission to freestyle through the Natural History Museum. It’s part of a commercial deal with Red Bull.
🔗 A research team has been awarded £1 million to examine the full extent of museum closures in the UK between 2000 and 2025. Much of this period saw austerity shutter institutions.
🔗 A rare book thought to have been used to convert Charles II to Catholicism on his deathbed has been acquired by the National Trust. It’s going on show in Wolverhampton.
🔗 Remember the Museum of Ice Cream? The instagrammer’s dream museum-that-isn’t-really-a-museum is coming back, permanently. It opens in Miami in 2024.
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