Tate Modern’s permanent collection is exhibited in four thematic displays (Material Gestures, Poetry and Dream, Idea and Object, States of Flux) which eschew the chronological model of exhibition with the aim of creating a presentation of 20th Century art which is more open to new narrative interpretations and less contingent upon prior knowledge of art history. This model – which applies equally to Tate Modern’s initial hang (which used similarly vague and capacious thematic titles: History/Memory/Society, Landscape/Matter/Environment, etc.) as well as its recent reshuffle – hopes to place emphasis on shared tendencies within art practice rather than categorize art geographically or in terms of ‘movements’. This model is also expedient in so far as it enables the Tate to downplay the various gaps in its collection.
    For each of the four themes there is one large, ‘main’, room accompanied by a cluster of smaller adjacent galleries. This layout invites a fairly defined, unilateral interpretation of the presented theme. For example, the main room in Material Gestures is comprised predominantly of Abstract Expressionist painting providing a fairly clear, literal reading of the thematic title; similarly Poetry and Dream comes to equal Surrealism and Idea and Object equals Minimalism. The Tate’s collection of American Modernism seems to begin with post-war art (with strong holdings of Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism and Pop art): earlier works from the Ash Can School, Precisionism, or New York Dada could fit comfortably in the Poetry and Dream section but are absent1. In fact emphasis on pre-war American art is downplayed as work by Duchamp and Man Ray, made in New York prior to their moves to Europe (in 1923 and 1921 respectively), is shown in the context of the European avant-garde with no mention given to New York Dada or the Arensberg Salon despite the importance of these contexts for the work2. The lack of pre-war American art in the Tate’s collection seems to support a conventional view of art history: namely that emphasis shifted from Europe to America after World War Two. American Modernism is an interesting tool for showing up various characteristics of the Tate Modern’s re-hang and the Material Gestures display serves as a good example:

    In Material Gestures emphasis is placed on New York painters from the late 1940’s and the 50’s: Newman, Rothko, Pollock, Franz Kline, Still, etc.. Within this focus various juxtapositions are made – for example, between a late Monet and a Pollock, and two Barnett Newman’s and an Anish Kapoor sculpture – with the presumed aim of drawing out a specific dialogue, tracing the Expressionist tendency both back historically and forward to contemporary practices3. However these strategies, reinforced by the informational wall texts, often seem to act as weak stylistic illustrations: Monet’s late, almost completely abstract, work acts simply as a precursor to Pollock’s drips; Kapoor’s walk-in sculpture becomes a literal interpretation of Newman’s statement that his paintings should envelop the viewer. Strategies such as these may offer new narrative interpretations of familiar 20th Century art but the display can often make them prescribed or banal. The other galleries within Material Gestures attempt to flesh out the themes raised by the main room (for example one gallery focuses on earlier German Expressionism) but on the whole sit rather uneasily with the main gallery becoming subordinate or secondary spaces. One room offers a display of contemporary paintings which seem to have nothing to do with the idea of expressionism or material gestures or the ‘radical innovation’ suggested by the wall text; the only connection which might be made comes from a recently hung Bernard Frize painting4 which shows the language of abstraction prettily repackaged for a contemporary art market. A critical approach to the Material Gestures theme seems absent: later American Modernist movements which responded specifically to the idea of Abstract Expressionism either go unrepresented (such as the Colour Field painting and Post Painterly Abstraction of Louis, Olitski, and Noland) or are not linked to the display (for example, the displays of Minimal and Pop art are located two floors away from Material Gestures, thus denying the viewer the dialogue which exists between these different movements). This may be an attempt on the part of the Tate to look beyond the established theories of art history (for example, Minimalism’s critique of Expressionism) in favour of highlighting new and multiple readings which may not necessarily be chronological. However, the Material Gestures display is problematic in that certain narratives seem to be raised to a higher level than others; the result of a combination of factors, such as the substance of the collection, the choice of the theme, the nature of having one main room that is orbited by smaller satellite rooms, etc.. Thus the narratives the Tate offers up are hierarchized and ultimately the display serves to reinforce the traditional view of art history (expounded by Greenberg et al.) that American Abstract Expressionist painting marked a high point in post-war art and was the key, dominant movement of the 1940’s and 50’s5.

Notes:

1 For example the room in the Poetry and Dream wing entitled Realisms (showing work by artists of many different nationalities: Beckmann, Balthus, Frampton, Rivera, etc.) would be a suitable space for earlier Ash Can and Precisonist work (if the Tate had them in it’s collection) since their shared vision was of conveying the changing realities of the early 20th Century. Earlier American painting which the Tate does have on display consists of two early Pollock’s (Naked Man With A Knife (circa 1938 – 1940) and Birth (circa 1941)) which are exhibited within the context of Surrealism and Primitivism.

2 Works referred to include Marcel Duchamp’s Why Not Sneeze Rose Slavy? (1921) and Man Ray’s New York (1921) and L’Enigme d’Isidore Ducasse (1920) exhibited in the Poetry and Dream wing and also Duchamp’s The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass) (1915-23) exhibited in the States of Flux wing.

3 Works referred to are Claude Monet’s Water-lilies (after 1916), Jackson Pollock’s Summertime: Number 9A (1948), Barnett Newman’s Adam (1951-2) and Eve (1950), and Anish Kapoor’s Ishi’s Light (2003).

4 Spitz (1991), on display since April 2007.

5 For example, Rothko’s Seagram murals are given their own hallowed space within the centre of Material Gestures’ main gallery: an apotheosis of mid-century American high art.