Coordinates: 51°29′27″N 0°07′38″W / 51.490833°N 0.127222°W / 51.490833; -0.127222

Tate Britain
Location within Central London
Established	1897 as National Gallery of British Art; became Tate Britain in 2000
Location	Millbank, London, England
Visitor figures	1,501,837 (2009)[1] Ranked 9th nationally
Director	Penelope Curtis[2]
Public transit access	Pimlico
Website	www.tate.org.uk/britain
Tate
Tate Britain · Tate Liverpool · Tate Modern · Tate St Ives

Tate Britain is an art gallery situated on Millbank in London, and part of the Tate gallery network in Britain, with Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It is the oldest gallery in the network, opening in 1897. It houses a substantial collection of the works of J. M. W. Turner.

History[link]

It is housed in the Tate's original premises on Millbank on the site of Millbank Prison. The front part of the building was designed by Sidney R. J. Smith with a classical portico and dome behind. Construction, undertaken by Higgs and Hill,^[3] commenced in 1893. The gallery opened on 21 July 1897 as the National Gallery of British Art, but became commonly known as the Tate Gallery, after its founder Sir Henry Tate. There have been several extensions over the years. The central sculpture gallery was designed by John Russell Pope.

World War II bomb damage still visible on the Atterbury Street wall

Clore Gallery housing works by J. M. W. Turner

Crises during its existence include flood damage to work from the River Thames and bomb damage during World War II, though most of the collection was in safe storage elsewhere, and a large Stanley Spencer painting, deemed too big to move, had a protective brick wall built in front of it.

The gallery housed and displayed both British and Modern collections, but was renamed "Tate Britain" in March 2000, before the launch of Tate Modern, since which time it has been dedicated to the display of historical and contemporary British art only.

Tate Britain includes the Clore Gallery of 1987, designed by James Stirling, which houses work by J. M. W. Turner.

On July 1, 1997, Diana, Princess of Wales visited the gallery, it was her 36th and last birthday. However, it was not a birthday party but instead she was a guest of honour at an event that day. The Princess died almost two months later, in Paris.

Facilities[link]

Millbank Millennium Pier outside Tate Britain, which is linked by a high-speed boat to Tate Modern.

The front entrance is accessible by steps. A side entrance at a lower level has a ramp for wheelchair access. The gallery provides a restaurant and a cafe, as well as a Friends room, open only to members of the Tate. This membership is open to the public on payment of an annual subscription. As well as administration offices the building complex houses the Prints and Drawings Rooms (in the Clore galleries),^[4] as well as the Library^[5] and Archive^[6] in the Hyman Kreitman Reading Rooms.^[7] The restaurant features a mural by Rex Whistler.

Tate Britain and Tate Modern are now connected by a high speed boat along the River Thames, which runs from Millbank Millennium Pier immediately outside Tate Britain. The boat is decorated with spots, based on paintings of similar appearance by Damien Hirst. The lighting artwork incorporated in the pier's structure is by Angela Bulloch.^[8]

Shows[link]

The main display spaces show the permanent collection of historic British art, as well as contemporary work. It has rooms dedicated to works by one artist, such as: Tracey Emin, John Latham, Douglas Gordon, Sam Taylor-Wood, Marcus Gheeraerts II, though these, like the rest of the collection, are subject to rotation.

Tate Britain draped for the 2003 Tate Triennial exhibition

The gallery also organises career retrospectives of British artists and temporary major exhibitions of British Art. Every three years the gallery stages a Triennial exhibition in which a guest curator provides an overview of contemporary British Art. The 2003 Tate Triennial was called Days Like These.^[9] Art Now is a small changing show of a contemporary artist's work in a dedicated room.

Tate Britain hosts the annual and usually controversial Turner Prize exhibition, featuring four artists under the age of fifty, selected by a jury chaired by the director of Tate Britain. This is spread out over the year with the four nominees announced in May, the show of their work opened in October and the prize itself given in December. Each stage of the prize generates media coverage, and there have also been a number of demonstrations against the prize, notably since 2000 an annual picket by Stuckist artists.

Tate Britain has attempted to reach out to a different and younger audience with Late at Tate Britain on the first Friday of every month, with half-price admission to exhibitions, live music and performance art.^[10] Other public involvement has included the display of visitors', as opposed to curators', interpretation of certain artworks.

Regular free tours operate on the hour, and at 1.15pm on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday short 15 minute talks are given on paintings, artists and artistic styles.^[11]

Permanent collection[link]

Tate Britain is the national gallery of British art from 1500 to the present day. As such, it is the most comprehensive collection of its kind in the world (only the Yale Center for British Art can claim similar expansiveness, but with less depth). More recent artists include David Hockney, Peter Blake and Francis Bacon. Works in the permanent Tate collection, which may be on display at Tate Britain include:

• The Painter and his Pug by William Hogarth
• Newton by William Blake
• Horse Attacked by a Lion by George Stubbs
• Giovanna Baccelli by Thomas Gainsborough
• Sketch for Hadleigh Castle by John Constable
• The Great Day of His Wrath by John Martin
• The Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse
• Ophelia by John Everett Millais
• The Death of Chatterton by Henry Wallis
• Beata Beatrix by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
• The Golden Bough by J. M. W. Turner
• The Merry-Go-Round by Mark Gertler
• The Resurrection, Cookham by Stanley Spencer
• Norham Castle, Sunrise by J.M.W. Turner
• Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion by Francis Bacon
• Three Ladies Adorning a Term of Hymen by Joshua Reynolds
• The Cholmondeley Ladies by unknown 17th-century artist
• The Mud Bath by David Bomberg
• Recumbent Figure by Henry Moore
• Nocturne: Blue and Gold - Old Battersea Bridge by James McNeill Whistler

The Tate collection is supported by BP.^[12] Recently, Tate Britain has unveiled a £45 million ($70.16 million) gallery makeover scheme designed by London-based practice Caruso St John Architects.^[13]

Statue of Millais[link]

Statue of John Everett Millais by Thomas Brock at Tate Britain.

When the Pre-Raphaelite painter and President of the Royal Academy, John Everett Millais, died in 1896, the Prince of Wales (later to become King Edward VII) chaired a memorial committee, which commissioned a statue of the artist.^[14] This was installed at the front of the gallery in the garden on the east side in 1905. On 23 November that year, the Pall Mall Gazette called it "a breezy statue, representing the man in the characteristic attitude in which we all knew him".^[14]

In 1953, Tate Director, Sir Norman Reid, attempted to have it replaced by Rodin's John the Baptist, and in 1962 again proposed its removal, calling its presence "positively harmful". His efforts were frustrated by the statue's owner, the Ministry of Works. Ownership was transferred from the Ministry to English Heritage in 1996, and by them in turn to the Tate.^[14] In 2000 the statue was removed to the rear of the building.^[14]

Transport connections[link]

Service	Station/Stop	Lines/Routes served	Distance from Tate Britain
London Buses	Tate Britain	87
London Underground	Pimlico		0.4 mile walk[15]
National Rail	Vauxhall	South West Trains	0.5 mile walk[16]
London River Services	Millbank Millennium Pier	Tate to Tate	0.2 mile walk[17]

Notes and references[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Tate Britain

• Official website of Tate Britain

v t e Museums and galleries in London National museums and galleries British Library British Museum Imperial War Museum Churchill War Rooms HMS Belfast National Army Museum National Gallery National Maritime Museum Queen's House Royal Observatory Natural History Museum National Portrait Gallery Science Museum Tate Tate Britain Tate Modern Victoria and Albert Museum Museum of Childhood Designated collections Courtauld Gallery Dulwich Picture Gallery Firepower – The Royal Artillery Museum Horniman Museum and Gardens Hunterian Museum Jewish Museum Kensington Palace (Dress collection) Library and Museum of Freemasonry London Transport Museum Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture Museum of London Museum of London Docklands Petrie Museum Sir John Soane's Museum English Heritage Apsley House Chiswick House Down House Eltham Palace Jewel Tower Kenwood House (Iveagh Bequest) London Wall Marble Hill House Ranger's House (Wernher Collection) Winchester Palace National Trust 2 Willow Road Blewcoat School Carlyle's House Eastbury Manor House Fenton House George Inn Lindsey House (restricted) Morden Hall Park Osterley Park Rainham Hall Red House Roman Baths Sutton House Other museums and galleries Barbican Art Gallery Bruce Castle Design Museum Estorick Collection Foundling Museum Freud Museum Garden Museum Geffrye Museum Guildhall Art Gallery Handel House Museum The Hayward Hogarth's House Institute of Contemporary Arts Leighton House Museum Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising Old Operating Theatre Queen's Gallery Royal Collection Royal Academy of Arts Royal Academy of Music Museum Saatchi Gallery Serpentine Gallery Sherlock Holmes Museum Wallace Collection Wellcome Collection Whitechapel Gallery William Morris Gallery Category Commons

The Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdom's national collection of British Art, and International Modern and Contemporary Art. It is a network of four art museums: Tate Britain, London (previously known as the Tate Gallery, founded 1897), Tate Liverpool (founded 1988), Tate St Ives, Cornwall (founded 1993) and Tate Modern, London (founded 2000), with a complementary website, Tate Online (created 1998). There are plans to open a TATE in Southampton in 2020. It is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.^[1]

Tate is used as the operating name for the corporate body which was established by the Museums and Galleries Act 1992 as The Board of Trustees of the Tate Gallery.

The gallery was founded in 1897, as the National Gallery of British Art. When its role was changed to include the national collection of Modern Art as well as the national collection of British art, in 1932, it was renamed the Tate Gallery after sugar magnate Henry Tate of Tate & Lyle, who had laid the foundations for the collection. The Tate Gallery was housed in the current building occupied by Tate Britain which is situated in Millbank, London. In 2000, the Tate Gallery transformed itself into the current-day Tate, or the Tate Modern, which consists of a federation of four museums: Tate Britain which displays the collection of British art from 1500 to the present day; Tate Modern which is also in London, houses the Tate's collection of British and International Modern and Contemporary Art from 1900 to the present day. Tate Liverpool, in Liverpool has the same purpose as Tate Modern but on a smaller scale, and Tate St Ives displays Modern and Contemporary Art by artists who have connections with the area. All four museums share the Tate Collection. One of the Tate's most publicised art events is the awarding of the annual Turner Prize, which takes place at Tate Britain.

History and development[link]

The original Tate Gallery, now renamed Tate Britain

The original Tate art gallery was called the National Gallery of British Art, situated on Millbank, Pimlico, London at the site of the former Millbank Prison. The idea of a National Gallery of British Art was first proposed in the 1820s by Sir John Leicester, Baron de Tabley. It took a step nearer when Robert Vernon gave his collection to the National Gallery in 1847. A decade later John Sheepshanks gave his collection to the South Kensington Museum (later the Victoria & Albert Museum), known for years as the National Gallery of Art (the same title as the Tate Gallery had). Forty years later Sir Henry Tate who was a sugar magnate and a major collector of Victorian art, offered to fund the building of the gallery to house British Art on the condition that the State pay for the site and revenue costs. Henry Tate also donated his own collection to the gallery. It was initially a collection solely of modern British art, concentrating on the works of modern—that is Victorian era—painters. It was controlled by the National Gallery until 1954.

In 1915, Hugh Lane bequeathed his collection of European Modern Art to Dublin, but controversially this went to the Tate, which expanded its collection to include foreign art and continued to acquire contemporary art. In 1926, and 1937, the art dealer and patron Joseph Duveen paid for two major expansions of the gallery building. His father had earlier paid for an extension to house the major part of the Turner Bequest, which in 1987 was transferred to a wing paid for by Sir Charles Clore. Henry Courtauld also endowed Tate with a purchase fund. By the mid 20th century, it was fulfilling a dual function of showing the history of British art as well as international Modern art. In 1954, the Tate Gallery was finally separated from the National Gallery.

Tate Liverpool opened in 1988

During the 1950s and 1960s, the visual arts department of the Arts Council of Great Britain funded and organised temporary exhibitions at the Tate Gallery including, in 1966, a retrospective of Marcel Duchamp. Later, the Tate began organising its own temporary exhibition programme. In 1979 with funding from a Japanese bank a large modern extension was opened that would also house larger income generating exhibitions. In 1987, the Clore Wing opened to house the major part of the Turner bequest and also provided a 200 seat auditorium. (The "Centenary Development," in 2001, provided improved access and public amenities)

Tate St Ives (on right), opened 1993, overlooks Porthmeor Beach

In 1988, an outpost in the North West England opened as Tate Liverpool. This shows various works of modern art from the Tate collection as well as mounting its own temporary exhibitions. In 2007, Tate Liverpool hosted the Turner Prize, the first time this has been held outside London. This is an overture to Liverpool's being the European Capital of Culture 2008.

In 1993, another offshoot opened, Tate St Ives. It exhibits work by modern British artists, particularly those of the St Ives School. Additionally the Tate also manages the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden, which opened in 1980.

Tate Modern opened in 2000

Neither of these two new Tates had a significant effect on the functioning of the original London Tate Gallery, whose size was increasingly proving a constraint as the collection grew. It was a logical step to separate the "British" and "Modern" aspects of the collection, and they are now housed in separate buildings in London. The original gallery is now called Tate Britain and is the national gallery for British art from 1500 to the present day, as well as some modern British art. Tate Modern, in Bankside Power Station on the south side of the Thames, opened in 2000 and now exhibits the national collection of modern art from 1900 to the present day, including some modern British art. In its first year, the Tate Modern was the most popular museum in the world, with 5,250,000 visitors.

Sir Nicholas Serota has been the director of the Tate since 1988, when he took over from Sir Alan Bowness.

Tate Online[link]

Tate Online is the Tate's web site. Since its launch in 1998, the site has provided information on all four physical Tate galleries (Tate Britain, Tate St Ives, Tate Liverpool and Tate Modern) under the same domain. Tate Online helps visitors prepare and extend visits to the physical sites but also acts as a destination in its own right. Other resources include illustrated information on all works in Tate's Collection of British and Modern international art, structured and informal e-learning opportunities for all visitors, over 600 hours of archived webcast events, all articles from the magazine Tate Etc., and a series of bespoke net art commissions. BT was the primary sponsor of Tate Online from 2001 to 2009.

In addition to providing information about the galleries and organisation, Tate Online has been used as a platform for Internet art exhibits, termed Net Art,^[2] which are organised as part of Tate's Intermedia Art initiative^[3] covering new media art. So far, 13 net art exhibitions have been shown since the initiative started in 2000 including Tate in Space (2002) which was nominated in the Interactive Art category for the 2003 BAFTA Interactive awards.

Administration[link]

The Tate receives annual funding from the Department for Culture, Media & Sport. It is administered by a board of trustees, who are responsible for the running of the gallery and appoint the Director (for a period of seven years). Under the Charities Act 1993, the Tate is an exempt charity accountable directly to Government rather than the Charity Commission for financial returns etc. However, the Trustees are still expected to follow the broad responsibilities of charity trustees, and may be subject to Charity Commission oversight on these elements of their activities.

Various bodies have been set up to support the Tate including Tate Members for the general public, where a yearly fee gives rights such as free entry to charging exhibitions and members rooms. There is also Tate Patrons for a higher subscription fee and the Tate Foundation. There are a number of corporate sponsors. In addition individual shows are often sponsored.

The Outset Contemporary Art Fund was established in 2003, by Tate patrons Yana Peel and Candida Gertler. In collaboration with the Frieze Art Fair, the fund buys works from the fair for the Tate's collections.

Controversies[link]

• In the 19th century, there was dispute over the acquisitions made with the Chantrey bequest and accusations that favouritism resulted in the purchase of dull work by Royal Academicians
• In 1971, an exhibition by Robert Morris called Bodyspacemotionthings was closed after five days due to health and safety concerns^[4][5]
• In 1972, the Tate Gallery purchased a work by Carl Andre called Equivalent VIII. During a 1976 exhibition of the work, The Times newspaper published an article using the work to complain about institutional waste of taxpayers' money. The article made the piece infamous and it was subjected to ridicule in the media and vandalism. The work is still popularly known as "The Bricks," and has entered the British public lexicon
• Each year, the Turner Prize is held at a Tate Gallery (historically at Tate Britain) and is awarded to an artist under 50 who is either British or primarily working in Great Britain. It is the subject of great controversy and creates much media attention for contemporary British art, as well as attracting demonstrations
• In 1995, it was revealed that the Tate had accepted a gift of £20,000 from art fraudster John Drewe. The gallery had given Drewe access to its archives which he then used to forge documents authenticating fake modern paintings that he then sold
• In 1998, Sir Nicholas Serota, director of Tate, conceived 'Operation Cobalt', the secret and ultimately successful buyback of two of the Tate's paintings by JMW Turner that had been stolen from a German gallery in 1994. See Frankfurt art theft (1994)
• Charles Saatchi stated that an offer of a major gift of works was rejected by Serota. Serota responded that no such offer had been made
• In 2005, the Stuckists offered a donation of 175 paintings which had been exhibited at the Walker Art Gallery. This was rejected and the Tate was accused of "snubbing one of Britain’s foremost collections"^[6]
• In 2005, there was a scandal over the Tate's purchase of its trustee Chris Ofili's work The Upper Room for £705,000, and accusations of conflict of interest^[7] In July 2006, the Charity Commission completed an investigation into this and censured the gallery for acting outside its legal powers^[8]
• In 2006, a legal opinion was given that the Tate and National Gallery have no legal right to ownership of the Turner Bequest, as Turner's conditions for that had never been fulfilled and are still binding^[9]
• In 2006, it was revealed that the Tate was the only national-funded museum not to be accredited to the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA), as it did not wish to abide by guidelines that deaccessioned work should first be offered to other museums. The MLA threatened to bar the Tate from acquiring works under the Acceptance in Lieu (AIL) scheme, whereby works are given to the nation to settle inheritance tax. A total of 1,800 museums are accredited with the MLA^[10]
• Tate has been criticised for its partnership with BP. Environmental campaigners Art Not Oil have called for a protest against the petrol company's sponsorship of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad.^[11]

Logo and brand[link]

The Tate logo was designed by international brand consultancy Wolff Olins in 2000 as part of a larger rebranding effort focused around the idea "look again, think again." The museum uses a range of logos that move in and out of focus, "suggesting the dynamic nature of Tate - always changing but always recognizable"^[12] Variations include a standard logo, a blurred version, a faded version and a halftone version consisting of dots rather than smooth fading.^[13]

See also[link]

• Tate Etc.
• Turner Prize
• Tate Publishing Ltd, a publisher of art books associated with the Tate Gallery

References[link]

External links[link]

• Tate Online 65,000 works from the Tate Collection online, information on Tate's exhibitions and events programmes, and online learning resources
• TATE ETC. Magazine
• Tate online shop Classic, modern and contemporary design products for adults and children, including items produced exclusively by Tate and items represented in its collection.
• Turner Worldwide - an ongoing online cataloguing of JMW Turner's work around the world
• Turner Collection Online The online catalogue of Tate's collection of nearly 300 oil paintings and 30,000 works on paper by JMW Turner
• Tate Gallery Records Tate's own historical records
• Tate Podcasts Audio and video podcasts from Tate
• Tate in Space
• Turner Museum
• Tate Channel Filmed artist talks and interviews, studio visits, and exhibitions

Media related to Tate at Wikimedia Commons

v t e Museums and galleries in London National museums and galleries British Library British Museum Imperial War Museum Churchill War Rooms HMS Belfast National Army Museum National Gallery National Maritime Museum Queen's House Royal Observatory Natural History Museum National Portrait Gallery Science Museum Tate Tate Britain Tate Modern Victoria and Albert Museum Museum of Childhood Designated collections Courtauld Gallery Dulwich Picture Gallery Firepower – The Royal Artillery Museum Horniman Museum and Gardens Hunterian Museum Jewish Museum Kensington Palace (Dress collection) Library and Museum of Freemasonry London Transport Museum Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture Museum of London Museum of London Docklands Petrie Museum Sir John Soane's Museum English Heritage Apsley House Chiswick House Down House Eltham Palace Jewel Tower Kenwood House (Iveagh Bequest) London Wall Marble Hill House Ranger's House (Wernher Collection) Winchester Palace National Trust 2 Willow Road Blewcoat School Carlyle's House Eastbury Manor House Fenton House George Inn Lindsey House (restricted) Morden Hall Park Osterley Park Rainham Hall Red House Roman Baths Sutton House Other museums and galleries Barbican Art Gallery Bruce Castle Design Museum Estorick Collection Foundling Museum Freud Museum Garden Museum Geffrye Museum Guildhall Art Gallery Handel House Museum The Hayward Hogarth's House Institute of Contemporary Arts Leighton House Museum Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising Old Operating Theatre Queen's Gallery Royal Collection Royal Academy of Arts Royal Academy of Music Museum Saatchi Gallery Serpentine Gallery Sherlock Holmes Museum Wallace Collection Wellcome Collection Whitechapel Gallery William Morris Gallery Category Commons

v t e Department for Culture, Media and Sport of the United Kingdom Headquarters: 2–4 Cockspur Street, London, SW1Y 5DH Executive agencies Royal Parks Agency Non-departmental public bodies Advisory Advisory Committee on Historic Wreck Sites Advisory Committee on National Historic Ships Advisory Committee on the Government Art Collection Advisory Council on Libraries English Marketing Advisory Board Legal Deposit Advisory Panel Public Lending Right Advisory Committee Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest Spoliation Advisory Panel Theatres Trust Treasure Valuation Committee Executive Arts Council of England Big Lottery Fund British Film Institute British Library British Museum Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment English Sports Council Football Licensing Authority Gambling Commission Geffrye Museum English Heritage Historic Royal Palaces Horniman Museum Horserace Betting Levy Board Imperial War Museum Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester Museums, Libraries and Archives Council National Gallery National Heritage Memorial Fund National Lottery Commission National Maritime Museum National Museums Liverpool National Museum of Science and Industry National Portrait Gallery Natural History Museum Olympic Delivery Authority Olympic Lottery Distributor Registrar of Public Lending Right Royal Armouries Museum Sir John Soane's Museum Sport England Tate UK Film Council UK Sport Victoria and Albert Museum VisitBritain Wallace Collection Tribunal Horserace Betting Levy Tribunal Public broadcasting authorities British Broadcasting Corporation Sianel Pedwar Cymru (S4C) (Welsh Fourth Channel Authority) Statutory corporations Channel Four Television Corporation Historic Royal Palaces Office of Communications (Ofcom) Ministers Secretary of State Jeremy Hunt Under-Secretaries of State Culture, Communications and Creative Industries: Ed Vaizey Sport and the Olympics: Hugh Robertson Tourism and Heritage: John Penrose Category

Coordinates: 51°29′28″N 0°07′37″W / 51.491°N 0.127°W / 51.491; -0.127

Christopher Ofili, known as Chris Ofili (born 10 October 1968), is a Turner Prize-winning Nigerian/British painter best known for artworks making reference to aspects of his Nigerian heritage, particularly his incorporation of elephant dung. He was one of the Young British Artists. Since 2005, Ofili has been living and working in Trinidad, where he currently resides in Port of Spain.

Early life[link]

Ofilli, who is of Nigerian descent, was born in Manchester. He had a Catholic school education for years attending St. Pius X High School for Boys, and then Xaverian College in Victoria Park, Manchester.^[1] Ofili completed a foundation course in art at Tameside College in Ashton-under-Lyne in Greater Manchester and studied in London, at the Chelsea School of Art from 1988 to 1991 and at the Royal College of Art from 1991 to 1993.

Career[link]

Ofili was established through exhibitions by Charles Saatchi at his gallery in north London and the travelling exhibition Sensation (1997), becoming recognised as one of the few British artists of African/Caribbean descent to break through as a member of the Young British Artists group. Ofili has also had numerous solo shows since the early 1990s including the Serpentine Gallery. In 1998, Ofili won the Turner Prize, and in 2003 was selected to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale of that year, where his work for the British Pavilion was done in collaboration with the architect David Adjaye.

In 1992 he won a scholarship that allowed him to travel to Zimbabwe. Ofili studied cave paintings there, which had some effect on his style. Though Ofili's detractors often state that he "splatters"^[2] elephant dung on his pictures, this is inaccurate: he sometimes applies it directly to the canvas in the form of dried spherical lumps, and sometimes, in the same form, uses it as varnished foot-like supports on which the paintings stand.

Ofili's paintings also make reference to blaxploitation films and gangsta rap, seeking to question racial and sexual stereotypes in a humorous way. His work is often built up in layers of paint, resin, glitter, dung (mainly elephant) and other materials to create a collage.

Ofili has been founder and prime mover behind the short-lived Freeness Project.^[3] This involved the coming together of artists, producers and musicians of minority ethnic groups (Asian and African) in an attempt to expose the music that may be unheard in other spaces. Freeness allowed the creativity of unsigned contemporary British ethnic minority artists to be heard. The result of months of tours to 10 cities in the UK resulted in Freeness Volume 1 - a compilation of works that were shown during the tour.

Ofili is represented by Victoria Miro Gallery, London, David Zwirner, New York, and Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin.

Exhibitions[link]

Ofili's work was featured in a museum in the 1995 exhibition Brilliant! New Art from London at the Walker Art Center. ^[4] Significant solo exhibitions include the Arts Club of Chicago (2010), Kestnergesellschaft, Hanover (2006), the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2005), and the Serpentine Gallery, London (1998). In 2010, Tate Britain presented the most extensive exhibition of his work to date.^[5]

Controversy[link]

[edit] The Holy Virgin Mary and Mayor Giuliani

One of his paintings, The Holy Virgin Mary, a depiction of the Virgin Mary, was at issue in a lawsuit between the mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani, and the Brooklyn Museum of Art when it was exhibited there in 1999 as a part of the "Sensation" exhibit. The painting depicted a Black Madonna surrounded by images from blaxploitation movies and close-ups of female genitalia cut from pornographic magazines, and elephant dung. These were formed into shapes reminiscent of the cherubim and seraphim commonly depicted in images of the Immaculate conception and the Assumption of Mary. Following the scandal surrounding this painting, Bernard Goldberg ranked Ofili #86 in 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America. Red Grooms showed his support of the artist by purchasing one of Ofili's paintings in 1999, even after Giuliani famously exclaimed, “There’s nothing in the First Amendment that supports horrible and disgusting projects!”^[6] The painting is now owned by David Walsh and is on display at the Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart, Tasmania.^[7]

[edit] The Upper Room and the Tate Gallery

The Upper Room is an installation of 13 paintings of rhesus macaque monkeys by Ofili in a specially designed room. It was bought by the Tate Gallery in 2005 and caused controversy as Ofili was on the board of the Tate Trustees at the time of the purchase. In 2006 the Charity Commission censured the Tate for this purchase.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Film about Chris Ofili's 2010 exhibition at Tate Modern and how his move to Trinidad has freed up his work - The Guardian
• Chris Ofili at the Museum of Modern Art
• David Zwirner: Chris Ofili
• Victoria Miro Gallery: Chris Ofili
• Turner Prize Winner 1998: Chris Ofili
• Chris Ofili: Old BBC Profile
• Criticism of the Tate The Upper Room purchase
• Elephant dung artist gives a little back 22 Feb 2002
• Defence of the Tate The Upper Room purchase.
• "How The Tate Broke The Law" (Guardian 07/2006)
• Chris Ofili, published by Rizzoli Fall 2009, contributors include David Adjaye, Thelma Golden, Okwui Enwezor, Peter Doig and Kara Walker Rizzoli New York
• Michael Glover, "Shock and awe: The art of Chris Ofili"; and extract from "Ekow Eshun interviews Chris Ofili", edited by Helen Little in Chris Ofili (Tate Publishing, 2010), The Independent, 22 January 2010.

Anna Calvi
Background information
Born	1982 (age 29–30) London, England, United Kingdom
Genres	Alternative,[1] indie rock[1]
Occupations	Singer, songwriter, musician, guitarist
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, violin, bass, piano, sitar,
Years active	2006–present
Labels	Domino
Associated acts	The Invisible, Arctic Monkeys, Brian Eno, Nick Cave, Alice & The Cool Dudes
Website	www.annacalvi.com

Anna Calvi is an English musician who plays in the band of the same name. On 6 December 2010, Calvi was announced as a nominee for the BBC's Sound of 2011 poll.^[2] Her debut album Anna Calvi was released in the UK on 17 January 2011,^[3] where it debuted at number 40 on 23 January.^[4] The album was subsequently nominated for the prestigious Mercury Music Prize in 2011^[5] and the BRIT Awards in 2012.^[6]

History[link]

Formation and early years[link]