Journeys through the Tate Collection
Explore more than 80 works from the Tate collection for free
This display of art from the Tate collection considers the impact of the global movement of people on artists and art movements throughout the twentieth century and beyond. On display are works that explore themes of migration, colonialism, and international exchange, and how they are relevant to the history of Liverpool.
Visitors can expect to see works by artists including Anish Kapoor, Sonia Boyce, Chen Zhen, Njideka Akunyili Crosby and György Kepes.
Highlights include Hew Locke’s Armada 2019, a large-scale flotilla of boats and rafts suspended from the ceiling. The sailing vessels hold complex and multiple meetings, symbolic of colonial and post-colonial power as well as the artist’s own movement to and from Guyana as a child. Also on display is Mona Hatoum’s Measures of Distance 1988 which speaks of exile, disorientation, and a tremendous sense of loss the artist experienced as a result of separation caused by the war in Lebanon.
By exploring works like these, and how they resonate with local and global history, we can consider the relationship between Liverpool and the world that it looks out on.
Mira Schendel, Untitled 1963
In this work, geometric figures in subdued colours are suspended in a dark, abstract background. The subtle use of texture and treatment of the surface adds a three-dimensional aspect to the painting. The forms are deliberately asymmetrical and hand-drawn, exemplifying the subtle subversion of European geometric abstraction in Brazilian art through the introduction of organic or destabilising elements. Schendel contributed to the development of Concrete and Neo-concrete art in Brazil during the 1960s, though she remained detached from those groups and developed a distinct and unique body of work.
Gallery label, May 2012
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György Kepes, Gears 2 (Gears and Inked Carton) 1939–40
This is one of a large group of photograms and studies in modernist photography in Tate’s collection by the Hungarian-born photographer, painter, designer, teacher and writer, Gyorgy Kepes (see Tate P80532–P80568, T13973–T13975). They date from 1938 to the early 1940s and were made in the United States, where Kepes had emigrated in 1937. Kepes made his earliest photograms in Budapest, taking nature as his starting point, directly recording the process without a camera onto photosensitized surfaces. In the late 1920s Kepes joined the Berlin studio of the Hungarian artist and modernist photographer László Moholy-Nagy (1895–1946). Moholy-Nagy had been a teacher at the Bauhaus School in Germany and was one of the principals in promoting the values of the Bauhaus movement, as well as a pioneer who experimented with a multitude of materials and techniques. Kepes was introduced to the ‘new vision’ provided by the possibilities of modern art techniques while collaborating alongside Moholy-Nagy. He began to experiment with photograms himself – photographic prints made in the darkroom by placing objects directly onto light sensitive paper and exposing the paper to light. Later, he made prints he called ‘photo-drawings’, in which he applied paint to a glass plate that he then used as though it were a negative. Only a few of Kepes’s works from this earlier period survived the artist’s many moves in the 1930s and the Second World War.
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Imants Tillers, Kangaroo Blank 1988
Kangaroo Blank 1988 is a painting that was commissioned by Daniel Thomas, the then director of the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide as the final inclusion in the museum’s exhibition, The Great Australian Art Exhibition 1788–1988 (1988). Comprising seventy-eight canvas boards, numbered 16231 to 16308, an ongoing numbering system the artist has employed in his paintings since 1981, the work draws on a number of references from existing works of art, primarily the painting The Kongouro from New Holland 1770 by British painter George Stubbs (1724–1806), in the collection of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, and the work of Japanese artist Shusaku Arakawa (1936–2010). George Stubbs was considered the foremost animal painter in Britain during the eighteenth century and was commissioned by Sir Joseph Banks (1743–1820) to paint two paintings of native Australian wildlife (kangaroo and dingo) following his return from Captain James Cook’s first voyage to the Pacific (1768–71), the first British voyage devoted exclusively to scientific discovery. Stubbs was not on the voyage, and painted The Kongouro from New Holland working from written and verbal descriptions, sketches made by the onboard artist Sidney Parkinson, and a kangaroo pelt that Banks had brought back with him. Tillers came across Stubbs’ painting in a publication of Joseph Bank’s Endeavour Journal 1962 (Baume 1988, p.226).
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Sir Don McCullin CBE, An Old Palestinian Couple Allowed to Leave the Massacre, Karantina, East Beirut 1976, printed 2013
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Geraldo de Barros, Abstraction (São Paulo) 1949
Abstraction (São Paulo) 1949 is a black and white vintage print by the Brazilian artist Geraldo de Barros. The photograph was taken in São Paulo and belongs to de Barros’s series of Fotoformas (or ‘photoforms’), in which the artist created abstract compositions out of photographs of architectural features. The starting point for this work was the textured glass and iron framework of a window, which was then altered using cropping and montage techniques. A related work from the same year is Untitled (São Paulo) Composition II 1949 (Tate P14601), for which de Barros photographed an elaborate iron chair through a pane of textured glass. Abstraction (São Paulo) shows de Barros’s experimentation with both the formal and technical aspects of photography. Its subject matter brings together urban architecture and formal abstraction.
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Geraldo de Barros, Untitled (São Paulo) Composition II 1949
Untitled (São Paulo) Composition II 1949 is a black and white vintage print by the Brazilian artist Geraldo de Barros. It was taken in São Paulo at a time when de Barros was creating abstract compositions out of photographs of architectural features. In this work he photographed an elaborate iron chair through a pane of textured glass. The glass distorts the image of the chair and its raking shadow, and casts a veil of horizontal lines across the composition. A related work from the same year is Abstraction (São Paulo) (Tate P14600), in which the textured glass and iron framework of a window provides the basis for the composition. This second work is from the series Fotoformas (‘photoforms’). Untitled (São Paulo) Composition II shows de Barros’s experimentation with both the formal and technical aspects of photography. Its subject brings together domestic architecture and abstraction.
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Lionel Wendt, [title not known] c.1933–8
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Sir Anish Kapoor CBE RA, As if to Celebrate, I Discovered a Mountain Blooming with Red Flowers 1981
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Hélio Oiticica, Spatial Relief (red) REL 036 1959
Oiticica suspended this work from the ceiling so that viewers would have to walk around it. He wanted us to become active participants in the work. Only by walking around it can you see the difference in colour and shapes on both sides. It is painted in two very similar colours, chosen for their reaction to light. Oiticica was influenced by the ordered abstraction of artists such as Piet Mondrian and Kazimir Malevich, whose work is also on display in this room. But Oiticica introduced elements of movement and change, emphasising the bodily experience of his work.
Gallery label, August 2019
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Lorna Simpson, Five Day Forecast 1991
If portraiture is intended to communicate something unique about its subject, Five Day Forecast might be described as an ‘anti-portrait’. The economy of the images, their serial arrangement and the use of black and white recall the conventions of nineteenth-century ethnographic photography, in which the subject becomes a de-individualised representative of a wider group. But in Simpson’s work, rather than being available for scrutiny and categorisation, the figure is photographed cropped so only her torso is visible. In this way, she remains ultimately inaccessible to the viewer.
Gallery label, November 2015
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Katsuhiro Yamaguchi, Mesh sculpture 1961
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Ivan Picelj, Surface IX 1962
Surface IX 1962 is a square-format wooden relief on a square wooden backboard which has been painted black by the artist. The relief itself is composed of twenty-seven vertical slats of wood of equal height and width, placed adjacent to one another. Each wooden slat has been machine-routed, or turned, creating a pattern of horizontal indentations at varying intervals along the slats. The profile of each moulded strip is undulated, some strips containing as few as thirteen notches, others as many as nineteen. Each profile becomes a different structural element in the constructed relief. Placed side-by-side, the alternating profiles create a sense of rhythm and movement. Surface IX belongs to a body of wooden reliefs that Picelj created between the late 1950s and the early 1960s to which he gave the name ‘surfaces’, differentiating them from each other by using the roman numerical system.
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Gauri Gill, Rajesh Vangad, The Eye in the Sky 2014–16
These photographs show evidence of sea pollution in a small mangrove forest in Port Dickson, Malaysia, Gill’s hometown. Colourful plastic bags and other rubbish have washed up with the tides, getting stuck in branches and roots. In the black and white photographs, it can be hard to distinguish the waste among the plants. The first photo shows large cargo ships in the distance. This suggests the activities of Port Dickson’s commercial harbour are the source of the detritus. More widely, the series raises questions about the consequences of globalisation on the environment.
Gallery label, June 2021
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Lionel Wendt, Untitled c.1933–8
Wendt is considered one of Asia’s earliest modern photographers. He was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) to a prominent family. Travelling to Europe in 1919 to study law, he encountered experimental music, visual art and literature. He kept up-to-date with developments in European modern art – including surrealism – on his return to Colombo in 1924. But instead of reproducing modernist conventions in his photographs, Wendt used what he had gained in Europe to convey the richness of Sri Lankan contemporary life and traditions.
Gallery label, October 2016
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Lionel Wendt, [title not known] c.1933–8
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Lionel Wendt, [title not known] c.1933–6
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György Kepes, Compass and Strainer Photogram n.d
This is one of a large group of photograms and studies in modernist photography in Tate’s collection by the Hungarian-born photographer, painter, designer, teacher and writer, Gyorgy Kepes (see Tate P80532–P80568, T13973–T13975). They date from 1938 to the early 1940s and were made in the United States, where Kepes had emigrated in 1937. Kepes made his earliest photograms in Budapest, taking nature as his starting point, directly recording the process without a camera onto photosensitized surfaces. In the late 1920s Kepes joined the Berlin studio of the Hungarian artist and modernist photographer László Moholy-Nagy (1895–1946). Moholy-Nagy had been a teacher at the Bauhaus School in Germany and was one of the principals in promoting the values of the Bauhaus movement, as well as a pioneer who experimented with a multitude of materials and techniques. Kepes was introduced to the ‘new vision’ provided by the possibilities of modern art techniques while collaborating alongside Moholy-Nagy. He began to experiment with photograms himself – photographic prints made in the darkroom by placing objects directly onto light sensitive paper and exposing the paper to light. Later, he made prints he called ‘photo-drawings’, in which he applied paint to a glass plate that he then used as though it were a negative. Only a few of Kepes’s works from this earlier period survived the artist’s many moves in the 1930s and the Second World War.
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Bruce Onobrakpeya, Veronica wipes Jesus’ face 1969
This is one in a series by Nigerian artist Bruce Onobrakpeya comprising fourteen linocut prints on paper in an elongated landscape format. The subject is a biblical one, with each of the prints depicting a different moment from Jesus’ last days on Earth as a man, beginning with his condemnation by Pontius Pilate and ending with his crucifixion and laying in the tomb. The episodes portrayed – known in Christian theology as The Stations of the Cross – are precisely detailed and dramatised in Onobrakpeya’s prints, but have been placed within an African setting. The apostles wear vividly patterned local Adire prints and those restraining Jesus appear to be wearing colonial-era police uniform. The overall palette of the series is blue and green, with hints of yellow and highlights in orange. Geometric shapes abound, recalling patterns found on traditional Nigerian textiles and architecture. While these forms structure the compositions, they also extend onto the crosses that feature prominently in many of the images. The prints are individually titled as follows: Jesus is Condemned to Death, Jesus Takes his Cross, Jesus Falls the First Time, Jesus Meets his Mother, Simon of Cyrene Helps Jesus, Veronica Wipes Jesus’ Face, Jesus Falls the Second Time, Jesus and the Women of Jerusalem, Jesus Falls the Third Time, Jesus’ Clothes are Torn Off, Jesus is Nailed to the Cross, Jesus Dies on the Cross, Jesus is Taken from the Cross and Jesus is Laid in the Tomb. Thirteen of the prints are number eight in an edition of fifty. Jesus Falls the First Time is number eight in an edition of forty-eight. Complete sets of the prints are rare; although they can be shown individually, they are ideally shown all together as they were in the inaugural exhibition at Tate Modern, London in 2001, Century City: Art and Culture in the Modern Metropolis.
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Paulo Nazareth, Cinema Brasil 2012–2013
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György Kepes, Hand on Black Ground c.1939–40
This is one of a large group of photograms and studies in modernist photography in Tate’s collection by the Hungarian-born photographer, painter, designer, teacher and writer, Gyorgy Kepes (see Tate P80532–P80568, T13973–T13975). They date from 1938 to the early 1940s and were made in the United States, where Kepes had emigrated in 1937. Kepes made his earliest photograms in Budapest, taking nature as his starting point, directly recording the process without a camera onto photosensitized surfaces. In the late 1920s Kepes joined the Berlin studio of the Hungarian artist and modernist photographer László Moholy-Nagy (1895–1946). Moholy-Nagy had been a teacher at the Bauhaus School in Germany and was one of the principals in promoting the values of the Bauhaus movement, as well as a pioneer who experimented with a multitude of materials and techniques. Kepes was introduced to the ‘new vision’ provided by the possibilities of modern art techniques while collaborating alongside Moholy-Nagy. He began to experiment with photograms himself – photographic prints made in the darkroom by placing objects directly onto light sensitive paper and exposing the paper to light. Later, he made prints he called ‘photo-drawings’, in which he applied paint to a glass plate that he then used as though it were a negative. Only a few of Kepes’s works from this earlier period survived the artist’s many moves in the 1930s and the Second World War.
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artworks in Journeys through the Tate Collection
György Kepes, Untitled c.1939–40
This is one of a large group of photograms and studies in modernist photography in Tate’s collection by the Hungarian-born photographer, painter, designer, teacher and writer, Gyorgy Kepes (see Tate P80532–P80568, T13973–T13975). They date from 1938 to the early 1940s and were made in the United States, where Kepes had emigrated in 1937. Kepes made his earliest photograms in Budapest, taking nature as his starting point, directly recording the process without a camera onto photosensitized surfaces. In the late 1920s Kepes joined the Berlin studio of the Hungarian artist and modernist photographer László Moholy-Nagy (1895–1946). Moholy-Nagy had been a teacher at the Bauhaus School in Germany and was one of the principals in promoting the values of the Bauhaus movement, as well as a pioneer who experimented with a multitude of materials and techniques. Kepes was introduced to the ‘new vision’ provided by the possibilities of modern art techniques while collaborating alongside Moholy-Nagy. He began to experiment with photograms himself – photographic prints made in the darkroom by placing objects directly onto light sensitive paper and exposing the paper to light. Later, he made prints he called ‘photo-drawings’, in which he applied paint to a glass plate that he then used as though it were a negative. Only a few of Kepes’s works from this earlier period survived the artist’s many moves in the 1930s and the Second World War.
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El Anatsui, Ink Splash II 2012
Ink Splash II resembles an abstract painting. However the illusion of swift, gestural brushstrokes and splashes has been created through a painstaking process of weaving flattened bottle tops together with copper wire. The artist explains, ‘the most important thing is the transformation. The fact that these media, each identifying a brand of drink, are no longer going back to serve the same role but are elements that could generate some reflection, some thinking, or just some wonder…[T]hey are removed from their accustomed, functional context into a new one, and they bring along their histories and identities.’
Gallery label, January 2016
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Lionel Wendt, [title not known] c.1933–8
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Lionel Wendt, [title not known] c.1933–8
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Iwao Yamawaki, Untitled (Modernist architecture) 1930–2
Born in Fujita, Nagasaki, Iwao Yamawaki studied architecture at the Tokyo School of Arts and after graduating worked as an architect in a construction company. During this time, he took pictures with his 35mm camera to support and document his architectural studies. In 1931 he travelled to Germany to study at the Bauhaus in Dessau and became heavily influenced by László Moholy-Nagy’s idea that photography could open up new ways of seeing the world beyond those available to the human eye. Yamawaki travelled widely in Europe and the Soviet Union, documenting modernist architecture and design, as well as capturing student life at the Bauhaus.
Gallery label, November 2015
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Iwao Yamawaki, Cafeteria after lunch, Bauhaus, Dessau 1930–2, printed later
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Iwao Yamawaki, In Dessau (Modernist architecture) 1930–2
Born in Fujita, Nagasaki, Iwao Yamawaki studied architecture at the Tokyo School of Arts and after graduating worked as an architect in a construction company. During this time, he took pictures with his 35mm camera to support and document his architectural studies. In 1931 he travelled to Germany to study at the Bauhaus in Dessau and became heavily influenced by László Moholy-Nagy’s idea that photography could open up new ways of seeing the world beyond those available to the human eye. Yamawaki travelled widely in Europe and the Soviet Union, documenting modernist architecture and design, as well as capturing student life at the Bauhaus.
Gallery label, November 2015
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artworks in Journeys through the Tate Collection
Iwao Yamawaki, Untitled (Composition with bricks, Bauhaus) 1930–2
Born in Fujita, Nagasaki, Iwao Yamawaki studied architecture at the Tokyo School of Arts and after graduating worked as an architect in a construction company. During this time, he took pictures with his 35mm camera to support and document his architectural studies. In 1931 he travelled to Germany to study at the Bauhaus in Dessau and became heavily influenced by László Moholy-Nagy’s idea that photography could open up new ways of seeing the world beyond those available to the human eye. Yamawaki travelled widely in Europe and the Soviet Union, documenting modernist architecture and design, as well as capturing student life at the Bauhaus.
Gallery label, November 2015
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Kader Attia, Untitled (Ghardaïa) 2009
On the table is a model, made entirely of couscous, of the ancient Algerian city of Ghardaïa. One of the photographs on the wall depicts the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier, who visited Ghardaïa in 1931 and adapted elements of its buildings into his own designs. Another photograph shows Fernand Pouillon, one of Le Corbusier’s followers, who drew upon these ideas to design the social housing project in suburban Paris where Attia grew up, as the child of Algerian parents. The artist’s own history, and the wider post-colonial relationship between Algeria and France, are therefore expressed through this work.
Gallery label, October 2016
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Saloua Raouda Choucair, Infinite Structure 1963–5
Choucair’s painting and sculpture combines European abstraction with Arab and Islamic traditions. Many of her sculptures are composed of interlocking pieces, which build to create a larger structure resembling a column or a wall. Infinite Structure, a tower of multiple rectangular stone blocks, reflects her affinity with architectural structures. Choucair once said that given another life to live she would choose to be an architect.
Gallery label, October 2016
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