Tate tars popular works with imperial brush
Rehang of gallery includes ‘stealth bombs’ of political context as director relabels and removes paintings
‘We want to show that art isn’t made in a vacuum – it’s made by real people living in the real world’
THE Lady of Shalott is out and Black Lives Matter is in. The Tate Britain rehang has replaced some of its most popular paintings with contemporary works about politics, colonialism and environmental disaster.
In an “inclusive view of art history”, according to the gallery’s director, works on display will be accompanied by labels that have been updated to provide historical context.
Beside Joseph Van Aken’s portrait of a family taking tea in 1720, the text explains: “Tea was a bitter drink, sweetened with sugar produced in British colonies in the Caribbean with the labour of enslaved African people.”
Spencer Gore’s Rule Britannia, capturing a performance of the patriotic ballet Our Flag in Leicester Square
in 1909, features Danish dancer Britta Petersen as the character of “England”. The text notes: “However, the ballet ignores the contested and often violent history of England’s colonial control over the British Isles.”
About 200 works acquired since the turn of the millennium are part of the rehang. Many old ones have gone into storage, including John William Waterhouse’s The Lady of Shalott and Anthony Caro’s seminal sculpture Early One Morning.
Rooms exploring the art of Victorian England warn visitors that artists of the time “often overlook, caricature or romanticise the experiences of women, people of colour, workers or those living in poverty”.
Paintings of crowd scenes “reflect the perspectives and prejudices of middleclass viewers” of the time.
Benjamin Robert Haydon’s Punch or May Day 1829, which includes a black man in a crowd scene, should be approached with the knowledge that “Haydon held racist ideas”.
Some rooms have installed contemporary pieces in dialogue with the works around them. A sculpture of a broken, Georgian-style chair by Sonia E Barrett lies in the centre of a room full of Georgian art. The text states: “English furniture in the 18th century was often made from mahogany produced by enslaved people in the Caribbean.”
A room devoted to JMW Turner’s sunsets houses Yuri Pattison’s sun[set] provisioning, in which images on a screen are generated by a machine which monitors the room’s carbon dioxide levels and pollution particle matter.
A room of contemporary works features a recent history of social justice movements including Black Lives Matter. It also addresses Brexit and the election of Donald Trump.
The presence of migrant and refugee artists in Tudor Britain is reflected in a contemporary sculpture by Mona Hatoum.
Female artists feature more prominently than in previous years, including Annie Swynnerton, who painted a portrait of the Suffragist Dame Millicent Fawcett; Emily Sargent, the sister of John Singer Sargent; and Pauline Boty, the pop artist.
Alex Farquharson, director of Tate Britain, said: “We want to show that art isn’t made in a vacuum – it’s made by real people living in the real world. By exploring the connections between artists and the times they live in, we can shed new light on Britain’s greatest artworks and showcase a wider range of perspectives and ideas.”
A room covering the period 17601830 is entitled Troubled Glamour. Tate said: “Alongside works by Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds, curators have installed Olivia Plender’s Set Sail for the Levant, a contemporary, satirical board game about the exploitation of land in the 1800s.”
Mr Farquharson said the contemporary art works “like stealth bombs” in each gallery to give political context.
Your next visit to Tate Britain may not be all you hoped for – some of the most loved works from the national collection have been moved to the storeroom as part of its first comprehensive rehang in a decade. John William Waterhouse’s eerie Lady of Shalott, Anthony Caro’s groundbreaking Early One Morning, and Bethlem inmate Richard Dadd’s whimsical The Fairy Feller’s Master Stroke are nowhere to be seen, all in the interests of diversity. Female and minority artists have been under-represented, but is it necessary to remove the collection’s stalwarts to make amends? Post lockdown, the Tate Britain experience lost some of its pleasure when its Rex Whistler restaurant was shuttered – and its excellent wine list recorked – in the name of anti-racism. Must the killjoys now hide art people actually want to see?