Tate Modern

Tate Modern is an avant-garde art gallery located in the former Bankside Power Station, in the Bankside area of the London Borough of Southwark. The gallery holds a significant collection of British modern and contemporary art from the beginning of 20^th century to the present day. Tate Modern doesn’t charge for the access to the collection displays, though tickets must be purchased for some major exhibitions.

 

Tate Modern – the UK’s most popular modern art gallery

In April of 1994 the Tate Gallery officially announced that Bankside Power station should be the location for the new Tate Modern. The site was completed in January 2000 and was opened by her majesty the Queen Elizabeth II on the 11^th May 2000. The opening and the following first year was a major success. Tate Modern was visited by 5.25 million guests in its first year! Just to compare, three existing Tate galleries were visited by 2.5 million guests altogether. The gallery was expanded through time thanks to British government and generous donors such as Sir Leonard Blavatnik, John Studzinski, Elisabeth Murdoch or Eyal Ofer. The gallery space is situated between levels 2, 3 and 4.

Every floor is divided into the East and West wing with at least 11 rooms in each. The Switch House is a considerably new building. This ten-storey, 65 m high tower was opened to the public in June 2016. This extension provided  22.492 square metres of additional internal exhibition, performance, education, catering and office space, as well as, a car park. Tate Modern main exhibition consists of 8 areas. There are rooms within each area that are changing periodically, showing different exhibits but keeping the same theme.

For example in June 2016 the areas were as follows: “Start Display”, which is a three room display of works by significant artists and its purpose is to introduce the basic ideas of modern art; “Artist and Society”; “In The Studio”; “Materials and Objects”; “Media Networks; “Between Object and Architecture”; “Performer and Participant”; “Living Cities. The Gallery possesses many famous art works, just to mention Pablo Picasso’s “Figure dans un Fauteuil”; George Braque’s “La guitare”; Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s “Bathers at Mortzburg” or Juan Gris’s “The Sunblind”

See also National Gallery.

 

The most interesting facts according to Connect-Click:

• There’s an area located on level 0 called “The Tanks”, which was originally used as the power station and has been refurbished for performance space and video displays.
• The Turbine Hall, which was previously home to electricity generators, is now being used for large specially commissioned work displays of major contemporary artists.

Address: Bankside, London SE1 9TG