Modern Conversations
What does it mean to be modern?
Modern Conversations display, Tate St Ives 2021 © Kirstin Prisk
Modern Conversations spotlights five key artists associated with the modern art networks of St Ives and West Cornwall: Alfred Wallis (1855–1942), Marlow Moss (1889–1958), Barbara Hepworth (1903–1975), Partou Zia (1958–2008) and Bob Law (1934–2004).
Shown in dialogue with works by other 20th and 21st century artists from Cornwall and around the globe, these displays of Tate collection works unravel the stories and legacies of modern art in St Ives and beyond. Spanning decades and continents, painting, sculpture, ceramics, film, and photography appear side by side. The works reveal mutiple experiences of modern living and making, from regional to global perspectives.
Five thematic rooms are initiated through the work and practice of the spotlight artist. In gallery 1, painter Alfred Wallis introduces a range of artists and works that reconsider modes of storytelling. relationships with landscape arise through the abstract works of Marlow Moss in gallery 2; followed in the next room by politics of the modern body and identity, foregrounded by Barbara Hepworth. In Gallery 4, Partou Zia's canvases unite ideas of inner vision and expression through colour and light. The collection displays conclude in Gallery 7, with the role of abstraction in public and private spaces from the mid-twentieth century, led through the minimalist approach of Bob Law.
Shared concerns, motivations and questions connect these artists to each of us across time and place, as we all navigate being – and creating – in a rapidly changing world. Bringing together multiple artists, their works and viewpoints, Modern Conversations is an exploration into the development of modernism and how it shapes our experiences of the contemporary world.
Tate St Ives
Level 2, Level 3
Ongoing
Entry to both the display and the gallery is free for Tate Members, Locals' Pass holders and under 18s.
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Dame Barbara Hepworth, Sun Setting 1971
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Ana Mendieta, Untitled (Silueta Series, Mexico) 1976
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Joan Eardley, Salmon Net Posts c.1961–62
Joan Eardley studied at Glasgow School of Art and lived in the city from 1940 to 1961. In 1950 she discovered the small fishing village of Catterline on the east coast of Scotland, and was captivated by the place. She rented cottages there from 1950 to 1961, when Catterline became her permanent home. Fishermen caught crabs and lobster in summer and cod and haddock in winter. There was also a salmon season from February to August when these fish were caught in bag nets. The nets were stretched out to dry on the grass above the high water line of the Catterline shore and Eardley painted them on the spot.
Gallery label, August 2004
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Alan Davie, Image of the Fish God 1956
Davie’s paintings are characterised by a variety of personal pictograms, shapes and symbols that he has defined as ‘primordial’. He believes that they have ‘many and varied meanings’, which he leaves open to poetic interpretation and free association. Image of the Fish God has a totemic monumentality that evokes ancient cultures and shamanistic beliefs. The black form may be seen as figurative, and the central diamond is reminiscent of an all-seeing eye.
Gallery label, July 2012
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Andreas Gursky, Bahrain I 2005
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Tomie Ohtake, Untitled (from the series Blind Paintings) 1962
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Andreas Gursky, Bahrain I 2005
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Asger Jorn, The Timid Proud One 1957
Jorn had been a prominent member of CoBrA, a group of northern European artists whose improvisatory approach to painting was intended as a way of liberating their work from repressive bourgeois conventions. Although this painting was made several years after the group disbanded, its child-like style reflects the same principles. The figure embodies some mysterious inner struggle, perhaps reflected in the title. Jorn was a great believer in these kind of opposed dualities. ‘Tension in a work of art is negative-positive: repulsive-attractive, ugly-beautiful. If one of these poles is removed, only boredom is left’, he said.
Gallery label, November 2005
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Lubaina Himid CBE RA, Between the Two my Heart is Balanced 1991
This work re-imagines Victorian artist James Tissot’s painting Portsmouth Dockyard c.1877 and is titled after a similar engraving. Tissot’s work features a white British soldier seated in a boat between two white women. In Lubaina Himid’s version, the soldier is replaced with a stack of coloured objects. According to the artist, they are maps which the Black female figures are tearing up and discarding. This action might be seen as a rejection of forms of knowledge and navigation traditionally controlled by white men. Himid has stated the work is ‘a musing on what would happen if black women got together and started to try to destroy maps and charts – to undo what has been done’.
Gallery label, August 2020
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Ronald Moody, Midonz 1937
Gallery label, August 2003
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Virginia Chihota, Fighting One’s Self 2016
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Veronica Ryan OBE, Loss of Selves, Place and Transformation 2000
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