Tate Etc. issue 34
Visiting and revisiting art, etcetera
Highlights include: a celebration of Barbara Hepworth‘s prominence in and influence on the international art world with Chris Stephens, Inga Fraser, Linder Sterling and Conrad Shawcross, Tracey Emin on Francis Bacon and My Bed, Karen Schiff and Rosemarie Castoro on the life and works of Agnes Martin, a studio visit with Geta Bratescu, artist Sheila Hicks and fashion designer Duro Olowu on their admiration for Sonia Delaunay and writer Anthony Downey looking at art and terror.
The work of Barbara Hepworth (1903–75) is often associated with the British locations that she knew best, both St Ives and her childhood environment of Yorkshire. Chris Stephens introduces Tate Britain’s forthcoming exhibition, which will show she was, from the 1930s to her death in the 1970s, a truly international figure who felt passionately about the role of the artist within society. Curator Inga Fraser explains how Hepworth played a major part in shaping how her work was depicted in photographs and films, artist Linder Sterling explores Hepworth’s fascination with costume, design and performance and Conrad Shawcross discusses his new sculptural commission for Dulwich Park, on the site of Hepworth’s Two Forms (Divided Circle), stolen in 2011.
One of Tracey Emin‘s best known and most controversial works, My Bed, first made in 1998 and once in private hands, is now on long loan to Tate and on display at Tate Britain. To accompany its return to the gallery, Emin has selected two of her favourite paintings by Francis Bacon, an artist she has long admired, as she tells Tate Etc.
The American artist Agnes Martin was best known for her pared down, subtly coloured abstract paintings, mostly done when she was living in splendid isolation in New Mexico. But as the forthcoming retrospective at Tate Modern aims to show, her work was far more varied than that. It was also full of life and energy, as artists and admirers Karen Schiff and Rosemarie Castoro explain.
To coincide with her forthcoming display at Tate Liverpool—her first solo show in a British institution—Eleanor Clayton pays a visit to the studio of celebrated octogenarian Romanian artist Geta Bratescu.
During her long and fruitful life Sonia Delaunay (1885–1979) became a key figure within Parisian avant-garde circles as well as an important abstract artist. Her work across an extraordinary range of disciplines, including painting, textiles and fashion, saw her collaborate with poets, choreographers and manufacturers. In our second series of articles on the artist, Tate Etc. asked fellow artist Sheila Hicks and fashion designer Duro Olowu to talk about their long admiration for Delaunay.
For centuries artists have both responded to and reflected on political actions and events that shape society. Now they have risen to the challenge of questioning the moral ambiguity and culpability of governments waging the so-called war on terror, whose methods may, according to Anthony Downey in our latest Tate Etc. essay, have done more to weaken democracy than any terrorist.
Tate Etc.—Europe’s largest art magazine
Subscribe here or call T +44 (0) 20 7887 8959
