Buy Art Since 1900

Re-hanging Tate Modern

UBS Openings: Tate Modern Collection, Tate Modern, London

Art Since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism, by Hal Foster, Rosalind Krauss, Yves Alain Bois and Benjamin HD Buchlohn

Michael Savage
posted 22 June 2006

This art gallery and this book are both trying to grasp modern art - how to look at it, classify it and understand it. Both are informed by trendy theoretical perspectives, and each compliments, as well as complements, the other: the book praises the role of the curator as artist; the Tate director's praise adorns the book's dust jacket. And despite serious shortcomings, both succeed in spite of themselves.

The Tate Modern's influence exceeds its excellence. The collection is second-rate, in global terms, but it is the most visited gallery in the world and it has been a reference point in art controversies since before the Tate's modern collection had its own building on Bankside: the Turner Prize, Carl Andre's 'Equivalent VIII' (the bricks), and then the notorious thematic display when the collection moved to Bankside - pictures of bodies in one room, landscapes in another. Art Since 1900 is a textbook treatment of twentieth century art that is likely to be influential amongst undergraduates, and has aroused the ire of the same people who have criticised Tate Modern. It is heavily theoretical (and all the wrong theory - feminists and postmodernists!), and eschews themes and movements in favour of a year-by-year approach.

What you think of the Tate's director, Sir Nicholas Serota, normally defines where you stand on many of the burning issues in the arts. I hate him. He was in charge when the Tate Modern rejected any conventional art-historical categories and hung an entire collection by theme. It was gratuitously stupid, deliberately trying to do something 'approachable', that ordinary people would understand. Serota is often called a showman, although that's not necessarily a bad thing. The problem is that he is showing off to sponsors and funders imbued with fashionable shibboleths about access, rather than showing off the art. The thematic display made it hard for anyone to appreciate the collection. So when the re-hang was announced - with the publicity of a major exhibition, and even sponsorship from a bank (The UBS Openings!) - my heart sank. And true to form, the best critics slated it.

The re-hang is actually rather good. The categories are unconventional, but that is no bad thing. Twentieth century 'schools' of art merged and divided, artists moved from one group to another, styles changed, subjects and media waxed and waned. People criticise the Tate for not being 'chronological', as if putting one year after another will bring order to the world. Art Since 1900 seems to answer this criticism by doing just that; it could be a parody of what the traditional critics are saying the Tate ought to do. Despite this I think it works as a textbook introduction, because it offers lots of cross-sections of artistic developments. A textbook doesn't need to advance a thesis. And this one supplements the artistic cross-section with theoretical cross-sections; each author is from a different theoretical tradition. As the detractors have said, the theory can be a bit overwhelming. What they don't admit is that as an introduction to ways of approaching twentieth century art, it is better than some of the more staid offerings.

The Surrealism gallery is the highlight at the Tate. Paintings are hung above one another in an 'artistic' display that shows the art to good effect; the best paintings are mainly at eye level, but others provide context and make more effective use of the space. The captions are intelligent and interesting - they could even do with some dumbing down some of the labels, which are laden with sub-clauses. And some of the contrasts work really well. Picasso next to Pollock is surprising, and effective. Surrealism is a great strength of the Tate's generally patchy collection, and bringing related paintings in dialogue with surrealism plays to its strengths and allows us to appreciate unexpected facets of familiar things.

The way that paintings are shown affects how we see them. A gallery can sometimes tell a good story, but its main role is to show the art it owns to best effect. Even great paintings can lose impact if they are put next to something too bombastic. On the other hand, minor works can shine when they are put in the right context. The cacophony of styles and periods and formats in the previous hang made it hard to appreciate anything; the new hang is generally rewarding and enriching. Books do not have the responsibilities of galleries, which are sole custodians of unique works. One of the strengths of 'Art Since 1900' is that the theorists who wrote it are sufficiently engaged in the art that they keep stepping back from obvious theoretical teleology. There are so many short sections that a wide range of quality is inevitable, and there are certainly some that I wanted to tear out and stamp on. But the discussion of Matisse (which I assume is Bois') is exemplary, and there are some wonderful passages. It should provoke students as it provoked me, and that itself is a fine goal for a textbook.

The weaknesses of the Tate's modern collection are often bemoaned. The pernicious influence of Sir Alfred Munnings at the Royal Academy and Sir John Rothenstein at the Tate meant that serious modern art was never added to British public collections, although dealers like Marlborough and Reid & Lefevre sold the best via their London and Glasgow galleries, and there were some significant private collections. More recently the money simply hasn't been available, and even if it were, the best things are already in institutional collections abroad. Nevertheless, all art galleries have their own unique strengths and weaknesses, and the curator's role is to make the most of what is there. It is simply not the role of every gallery to re-tell the same story about the development of art; that would be dull, misleading, stultifying and stupid. On the other hand, randomness is also a failing, as we saw in Tate Modern until recently.

I was amazed by the success of the re-hang. But it's not all good. Each section begins with an unconvincing 'dialogue' between two works. At the beginning, in the cubism section, the first thing we see is Lichtenstein's 'Wham!', which is just the sort of sensational message that Tate Modern likes to associate with - and that it needs to get away from. The juxtaposition of Monet's 'Waterlilies' and a Pollock drip painting doesn't work, although the risk was worth taking. I suspect a more lyrical Pollock, such as 'Lavender Mist' in the National Gallery, Washington, would have been more effective. Worst of all, the fatuous fool Martin Creed has a fart playing on a continuous loop, loud enough to ruin many of the best galleries, including the Rothko Room - which ought to be the most serene of all. The sound of Martin Creed being put to the rack alongside certain of the Tate's curatorial staff would be more to my taste.

A common problem in modern art galleries is the balance between modern and contemporary. Modern art has stood the test of time. Contemporary art demands risk-taking. Curators have far more influence in displaying contemporary art - where they can affect the market for up-and-coming artists - than with historic art, which is studied and debated in wider circles. A particular problem today is that so much art is meant to be shown in public galleries and it is on a gargantuan scale. Showing contemporary art often pushes out established older art - where are Picasso's 'Three Dancers', and Matisse's 'Portrait of Derain', for example? It is a terrible curatorial decision to fill a room with PC rubbish from the Guerrilla Girls without making room for these masterpieces. My own solution would be to separate modern and contemporary art wherever possible, because curators of twentieth century art gain illegitimate borrowed authority from their collections when they select contemporary paintings.

I expected to hate the book and the gallery, and there was much in them that I could have ranted about. But the abiding memory is of how they helped me to see new things in the art itself, and that rises above their failings.