LONDON — Something feels off from the introductory lines of the exhibition booklet for Tate Modern’s Capturing the Moment. It proposes that the show “[will] explore the relationship between the brush and the lens,” yet the very next sentence clarifies that it won’t be doing this with any degree of precision: “Rather than attempt a definitive account of the dialogue between [painting and photography], an open-ended discussion is encouraged through varying depictions of people and place that invite us on a journey through recent art history.”
This “something” off is immediately apparent from the show’s opening room, which focuses on painting — but not really, as Dorothea Lange’s iconic photograph “Migrant Mother” (1936) appears for no given reason. No captions make any convincing stab at examining a “dialogue” with photography or photographic influence, or even how any of the works are relevant to each other. Picasso’s “Buste de Femme” (1938) was described by sitter Dora Maar as “Like an immense photograph … absolutely modern,” while Alice Neel’s wall text dwells on her depicting friends and neighbors in 1950s Spanish Harlem. Captions for painters as diverse as George Condo, Georg Baselitz, Paula Rego, and Cecily Brown waffle vaguely about the intensity and tension of the human condition, but again none touch upon any dialogue between photography and painting.
Only one room out of seven, containing a single example, fulfills the exhibition’s conceit (or the first sentence, anyway). Jeff Wall’s “A Sudden Gust of Wind (After Hokusai)” (1993), a transparency on a lightbox in which several figures in contemporary dress populate a windy landscape, is a direct homage to Hokusai’s woodcut “Ejiri in Suruga Province (Sunshū Ejiri)” (c. 1830–32), bearing a similar figurative composition. An intermediary graphite study nearby shows the process of transferring the design from original to planning out the photographed version.
Opposite is a quote from Wall in absurdly large text. Indeed, a lot of quotes are on the walls of these vast galleries in large text, or printed at jaunty angles traversing the corners, which smacks of submitting your written homework in a large font to compensate for lack of content. Picasso is quoted as saying: “Photography has arrived at a point where it is capable of liberating painting from all literature, from the anecdote, and even from the subject.” No analysis or visual examples further explore this tantalizing statement. Framing the exhibition as an “open-ended dialogue” apparently excuses such lack of curatorial focus or rigor; even the aggressively beige walls feel apologetic. So who steered this show anyway? No curator is listed within the exhibition, and there is no accompanying catalogue.
The press release identifies the curators as Gregor Muir, Director of Collection, International Art at Tate, and Beatriz García-Velasco, Assistant Curator, International Art at Tate Modern. However gallery goers are told that the exhibition is “realised in collaboration” with the YAGEO Foundation, Taiwan, and the works on view come from the YAGEO Foundation Collection and the Tate’s existing coffers. The YAGEO Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded by Taiwanese billionaire and entrepreneur Pierre Chen. Its purpose is “to [promote] art and culture through the sponsorship of exhibitions, research and educational programmes. The Foundation aims to foster dialogue between East and West and thrives to integrate art into everyday life.”
Its website lists the YAGEO’s last exhibition prior to this as 2014’s Guess What? Hardcore Contemporary Art’s Truly a World Treasure: Selected Works from the YAGEO Foundation Collection at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto. While that show was clearly demarcated as a set of loans from the foundation, here the YAGEO pieces are integrated with those from the Tate and packaged up like a specially curated exhibition, except with only the most perfunctory curating, and lack of catalogue or named curators — or a patent purpose. Yet the YAGEO has custody of a vast section of Tate Modern’s wall space for considerably lengthy run of six months, with punters paying £20, as for any other specially curated show.
As the press release rightly states, it is a “rare opportunity to see extraordinary works from the YAGEO Foundation Collection,” for there are pieces here only a billionaire could acquire — notably Warhol’s “Double Marlon” (1966), bought for $32.5m from Christie’s in 2008, or the world-record-breaking “Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)” by David Hockney (1972), also bought from Christie’s in 2018 for $90m, and yes it is very nice to see them. Unlike the curator names, a note is prominently displayed throughout the exhibition material thanking the British Government Indemnity Scheme (GIS), which “provides cost-free indemnity cover for loss or damage” to objects of art on loan from private collections or non-national institutions where the cost of insurance would have been too high for them to have been exhibited.
It is a coup then for the Tate to show such extraordinary (and extraordinarily expensive) pieces, and undoubtedly a benefit to the gallery-going public. A closer look at Gregor Muir’s job description reveals an emphasis not on curating, but on directorship of Tate’s international collection, which encompasses “[nurturing] and [expanding] the Tate’s existing international networks including the established acquisitions committees.” The show’s collaboration demonstrates success in this respect. Yet it sets a worrying precedent, especially given what feels like a lack of transparency into the monied roots of the show.
There are gains to be had from exhibiting private artwork in an internationally renowned institution; inclusion within a curated major exhibition lends it credibility and legitimacy, which can be added to an impressive provenance trail, making it attractive when put up for sale. This is not to assume YAGEO’s (or the Tate’s) agenda but rather to ask the question of how each party — YAGEO, the Tate, the paying visitors — benefits from the collaboration. And will we be seeing more exhibitions in which loaning institutions — or private owners — may influence institution programming at the expense of scholarship?
Capturing the Moment continues at Tate Modern (Bankside, London, England) through April 28. The exhibition was curated by Gregor Muir and Beatriz García-Velasco.
