Tate's new fund for staging performance
Tate has announced a new fund to enable the staging of live works from the national collection. This coincides with Tate's ongoing research project focusing on recent and contemporary art, including time-based media, performance, live and digital art.
The presentation of three works at Tate Modern and Tate Britain is supported by the Performance Activation Fund, which brings to life the growing number of performance scripts, scores and installations that have been acquired by Tate, allowing gallery visitors to experience them as part of the free collections display.
This year, Rose Finn-Kelcey's 'Bureau de Change 1987' will be presented at Tate Britain, Kemang Wa Lehulere's 'I cut my skin to liberate the splinter 2017' and Allora and Calzadilla's 'Balance of Power 2007 will be shown at Tate Modern, and Tony Conrad's 'Ten Years Alive on the Infinite Plain 1972' will be staged at Tate Liverpool.
The research related to Tony Conrad's work is part of 'Reshaping the Collectible: When Artworks Live in the Museum' a major project funded by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The research project focuses on works which challenge the practices and definitions of the museum and explores what it means to collect and conserve not just the documentation of a performance, but the performance itself.
Allora and Calzadilla's 'Balance of Power 2007' is a form of living sculpture that involves three yoga practitioners wearing military uniforms executing a sequence of yoga 'warrior poses'. Taking place intermittently in locations around Tate Modern this autumn, the work juxtaposes the quest for internal balance with the blind adherence to standardised codes of behaviour.
Maria Balshaw, Director Tate states 'Tate has the largest collection of live performance work in the UK and one of the most significant in the world. The conservation of time-based media, performative, live and digital art is an evolving process that requires academic rigour to ensure both the legacy and staging of each piece is innovative and world-class.