Chosen By The Curator: Stephanie Straine’s Favourite Constellations
OK Computer: Assistant Curator Stephanie Straine talks us through her favourite works in Tate Liverpool’s brand new (and free) national collection show…
Promising more than 150 iconic artworks from the 20th and 21st century — including pieces by Sir Peter Blake, Louise Bourgeois, Marcel Duchamp, Nam June Paik, Eduardo Paolozzi and Grayson Perry – Tate Liverpool’s brand new iteration of its popular DLA Piper Series: Constellations certainly doesn’t disappoint. Visit the gallery’s second floor now, and you will find Richard Hamilton, Louise Bourgeois, Joseph Beuys and Cindy Sherman acting as four ‘trigger’ artists, or starting points, for the visitor to discuss ideas and movements associated with their work.
All the surrounding artists — a huge variety of practitioners arranged like stars around the constellation’s trigger star — have been carefully chosen by the in-house curators from Tate’s national collection to examine shared affinities or concerns, encouraging us to forge our own links between the works.
Rebecca Horn: Scratching Both Walls at Once 1974-5 (Joseph Beuys Constellation)
“This black case contains the remnants of a performance by Rebecca Horn, in which she wore these dramatically elongated finger gloves, enabling her to touch both walls simultaneously while walking the length of a room. The performance transformed the limits of the artist’s body and its relationship to the surrounding space.”
Sheila Hicks: Ganem 1968 (Joseph Beuys Constellation, pictured above)
“Hicks began to produce her Minimes series of hand-woven works, such as this raw silk piece Ganem, in the early 1960s, inspired by her study of South American textiles, particularly the textile traditions of ancient Peru. Her work was championed later in the 1960s by the renowned French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss.”
Shelagh Cluett: No Title 1985 (Joseph Beuys Constellation)
“This small, wall-hung sculpture is an incredibly vivid emerald green colour, and was inspired by the artist’s various trips to South East Asia (in particular Burma, Sri Lanka and Thailand). It is partly based on the Stupa forms of Buddhist architecture.”
Richard Hamilton: Diab DS-101 Computer 1985-9 (Richard Hamilton Constellation, main image)
“In 1983, Hamilton was invited by a Swedish company to collaborate on the design of a mini-computer, and the functional three-part box design he produced continued his long-standing interest in merging the boundaries between fine art and advanced design and technology.”
Laura Robertson (Editor) with thanks to Stephanie Straine
Images, top to bottom: Richard Hamilton: Diab DS-101 Computer 1985-9; Sheila Hicks: Ganem 1968; Shelagh Cluett: No Title 1985. All courtesy DLA Piper Series: Constellations on display at Tate Liverpool until summer 2016 © Tate Liverpool, Roger Sinek
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