DLA Piper Series: Constellations explores connections between major works from the Tate collection across art history by arranging them in nine ‘constellations.’ It presents a complete re-hang of the collection displays at Tate Liverpool, and brings together over 100 artworks created between 1900 and the present day, including a significant number of new and recent acquisitions.
Acting as the originating ‘star’ of each constellation is one artwork that was chosen because of its persisting revolutionary effect on modern and contemporary art. As with the night sky—where the individual stars perceived within a single constellation are actually distant from each other in time and space—each of the ‘trigger’ works is displayed among artworks that relate to it, and to each other, across time and location of origin. The approach proposes the idea that the effect of an artist or artwork can take multiple directions at different points in time and space. Artworks that have a similarity, apparent variance or transformative connection to the trigger work are arranged in nine groupings, creating an accumulation of diverse relationships and meanings to extend the themes and concerns of the originating work.
The display draws on Walter Benjamin’s and Theodor Adorno’s use of the constellation as a spatial, temporal and perceptual concept, which provides a model for organising disparate information to make visible hidden connections. Using the constellation, affinities between even seemingly antithetical artworks are revealed. This elaborates on Benjamin’s concept of the constellation as a ‘thought-image’: the relationships between a set of elements are arranged so that a new idea becomes visible. The notion that the interplay between artworks and the viewer can also generate new meanings underpins the curatorial intention to involve audiences in formulating the reading and understanding of art. Members of the public will take part in workshops assigning to each artwork a set of keywords which are subsequently brought together to form a new ‘word cloud’ for each constellation. This activity enables new ‘thought-images’ to emerge beyond those initiated by art institutions and art history. Along with chronology, the corresponding notion of influence is abandoned in DLA Piper Series: Constellations in favour of ideas of repercussive impact, simultaneity and the active viewer as a source of knowledge.
The nine constellations are each triggered by works by Marina Abramović, Barbara Hepworth, Barbara Kruger, Man Ray, Henri Matisse, Robert Morris, Hélio Oiticica, Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock. Surrounding these will be works by Robert Adams, Eileen Agar, Francis Alÿs, Eleanor Antin, Rasheed Araeen, Jean Arp, Giacomo Balla, David Batchelor, Herbert Bayer, David Bomberg, Pierre Bonnard, Louise Bourgeois, Constantin Brancusi, Georges Braque, Stuart Brisley, Angela Bulloch, Daniel Buren, Victor Burgin, André Cadere, John Cage, Claude Cahun, Paul Cézanne, Christo, Lygia Clark, Jeremy Deller, Trisha Donnelly, Jean Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, León Ferrari, Barry Flanagan, Naum Gabo, Jack Goldstein, Ryan Gander, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Isa Genzken, Sam Gilliam, Liam Gillick, Albert Gleizes, Natalya Goncharova, Karl-Otto Götz, Duncan Grant, Mona Hatoum, Nigel Henderson, Barbara Hepworth, Douglas Huebler, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Edward Krasinski, Louise Lawler, Mark Leckey, Ufan Lee, Robert Longo, Len Lye, Daria Martin, Mary Martin, Henri Matisse, Jonas Mekas, Jean Metzinger, Joan Miró, Henry Moore, Robert Morris, Paul Nash, Bruce Nauman, Henrik Olesen, Dennis Oppenheim, John Piper, William Ratcliffe, Charles Ray, Auguste Renoir, Dieter Roth, Doris Salcedo, Santiago Sierra, John Smith, Simon Starling, Haim Steinbach, Alina Szapocznikow, Jiro Takamatsu, Dorothea Tanning, Armando Andrade Tudela, VALIE EXPORT, Paule Vézelay, Stephen Willats, Carey Young, and Li Yuan-chia.
Serving as an introduction to the display, Cerith Wyn Evans’ ‘Astrophotography … The Traditional Measure of Photographic Speed in Astronomy …’ by Siegfried Marx (1987) 2006 is exhibited in the gallery’s foyer.
Tate Liverpool
Albert Dock
Liverpool
L3 4BB
Hours: Daily 10–17.50h
Admission free
T 0151 702 7400
www.tate.org.uk/liverpool