The Lives of Artworks

Like us, artworks change. The Lives of Artworks in the Learning Gallery explores the ways in which artworks live on, both inside and outside of the museum, making visible the people who care for the artworks along the way.

The interconnected lives of a number of different artworks are revealed in this room:

• Videos that explore changes in the lives of artworks by Tony Conrad and Susan Hiller.
• A display that maps out the physical, social, intellectual and future lives of artworks by Ima-Abasi Okon that recently entered Tate‘s collection.
• QR codes linking to audio recordings featuring staff who work closely with Tate’s collection, sharing their experiences of caring for different artworks, from a collage by Pablo Picasso to a CD-ROM by Donald Rodney. The audio recordings are also available on Tate’s website.

This display draws on ideas from Reshaping the Collectible: When Artworks Live in the Museum, a research project at Tate. Since 2018, a team at Tate has studied the lives of complex artworks to understand how they impact the world and how they change in response to different contexts, such as the places they are exhibited (the artworks’ social life), the materials from which they are made (the artworks’ physical life), and the ideas that influence them and that they generate (the artwork’s intellectual life).

Visitors are invited to sit and read, watch, listen, think and add their thoughts using the cards provided.

The Learning Gallery is formerly known as the (un)common space and is a site for learning and engagement with research happening at Tate.