Fragile works of modern art are not travelling as extensively these days
As Rauschenberg goat comes to UK for first time in 50 years, Tate says loans are under pressure ‘The more you have a globalised art world, the more the demand. It makes it more challenging to concede every request’
IT IS becoming “increasingly difficult” to persuade museums and collectors to loan out pieces of modern art as many objects are becoming too fragile, the director of Tate Modern has suggested.
Even works of early modernism are harder to transport safely.
Curators also said that a “globalised art world” meant more and more institutions were asking collectors to part with works. High-profile galleries were being turned down as a result of the increase in requests.
Frances Morris, chief of the Tate, was speaking yesterday at the announcement of a major Robert Rauschenberg retrospective at the gallery from December, which will include the loan of a stuffed goat, seen in the UK for the first time in 50 years.
Belonging to the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, it had been feared Monogram (1955-59) was too fragile to travel and it was X-rayed to ensure it would survive the journey.
The exhibition will be the first posthumous Rauschenberg retrospective, and Morris paid tribute to institutions and sponsors who supported the show in a “more and more challenging climate”.
“Each decade of Rauschenberg’s sixdecade career will be presented as a chapter, each one will be represented by major international loans that very rarely travel,” she said.
“It’s increasingly difficult to get museums and collectors to release precious works for exhibitions such as this. Modern artists have always been experimental with materials, so demands on transporting their work change over time.
“Rauschenberg’s Monogram is a good example of the kind of major loans we are able to secure for exhibitions at Tate. We’re grateful to the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, for allowing us to borrow such a key work from their collection.”
Achim Borchardt-Hume, one of the show’s curators, said there were different reasons why key works were becoming harder to secure. “Certainly there’s fragility in work,” he said. “A lot of the works that we include are quite delicate by virtue of how they were made. “I think we have very good contacts among conservators in museums, who find ways to move things and make sure works are secure. “In other cases in earlier modernism, works get older. They age, it’s as simple as that. And the more you have a globalised art world and more places where people would like to see the same works, the more the demand. It makes it more challenging to concede every request. “So we have been very fortunate to secure the works we have secured.” Monogram will be the star of the Tate’s new show. The stuffed angora goat mounted in a tyre and on a painting is an example of what became known as his “combines”. Other pieces on show include a bed, featuring Rauschenberg’s own pillow and quilt, stretched like a canvas and covered with abstract pencil drawings and paint. A third work will comprise white canvases, in which the work is only completed by the shadow of the visitor. Some of the objects, curators admitted, left audiences “a little bit baffled” when they were conceived, years ahead of Damien Hirst’s stuffed animals and Tracey Emin’s bed.