THE
TATE
Our
gallery •
Serota
petition
•
Serota
competition
•
Mark Wallinger •
Jonathan Meese
Major topics: Trustee
scandal •
Turner demos
• Stuckists
rejected
OUR GALLERY
This is a gallery that we own, and if you pay British taxes so do
you.
However, it has been taken over by a small clique, who spend our
money very poorly.
Here is some information about our gallery.
WHERE THE TATE MONEY GOES
On
23.6.09, Tate Members received an email with a subject heading of
"Expect the unexpected at Tate" and the image shown right
(albeit without the last three lines of text) plus a "donate"
button and a "where your money goes" button. Clicking
the latter shows a picture of the Chapman Family Collection,
which was sold to the Tate for £1,500,000 by Charles Saatchi,
who bought it from the White Cube gallery for £1,000,000 (see
item below). Surely the picture on display should be one of Saatchi.
Why
don't the Chapmans donate a work to the Tate like other artists?
See Pandora in
The Independent 25.9.08. White
Cube/Saatchi makes £500,000 profit from the Tate. The Tate
refuse to comment. Why? They are spending public money and should
explain to the public exactly what they are doing and why. Anyone
would think they've got something to hide. See
artnet.com
(2nd story) 19.9.08. and Artinfo
23.9.08
Sir Nicholas Serota, Tate director - more conflict of interest.
Sunday
Telegraph 2.8.07.
Funny
video of Martin Creed's crap installation at Tate Britain here.
JEREMY
DELLER WINS TRUSTEE PRIZE!
The
new winner of the Tate Trustee Prize has been announced
by the Prime Minister (10.1.07) as Jeremy Deller. The
Prize is worth up to £705,000 and the full amount was won
in 2005 by trustee, Chris Ofili, who is now living in Trinidad.
Deller has four years to claim the total sum. However, last
year when Anish Kapoor was
awarded the Prize, the Telegraph
of Calcutta cautioned (22.12.05): “As [one] of the trustees,
Kapoor will have a say over purchasing policy but he cannot
fill the galleries with either his own or his friends’ works”
and added reassuringly, “There is a register to ensure there
is no conflict.” This is a cast-iron method to ensure integrity.
The Tate gives several prizes, including the starter prize
for prospective trustees, known as The Turner Prize (won
by Ofili, Kapoor and Deller), which is currently worth only
£25,000. Its most prestigious award is known as The Turner
Thief Prize and can be worth up to £3,300,000. It is only
given out every few years and its last winner was a previously
unknown Balkans group for stealing two Turner paintings.
Ofili's
Trustee Prize was celebrated
for several months in the press and given a
special mention by the Charity Commission at the end
of the year, following a successful Stuckist campaign to
highlight this hitherto-neglected award, given to many trustees
over the last 50 years. The Stuckists were commended
by Sir Nicholas Serota for having "acted in the
public interest".
|
|
Mark
D comments: "Deller is an exceptional talent
and is bound to be producing his best work to date in the
next year or so, necessitating a major Tate purchase, which
will double his market value, so I suggest you go out and
buy his work pronto!"
|
ANISH
KAPOOR WINS TRUSTEE PRIZE!
The
new winner of the Tate Trustee Prize has been announced
by The
Telegraph of Calcutta (22.12.05) as Anish Kapoor. The
Prize is worth up to £705,000 and the full amount was won
by Kapoor’s predecessor, Chris Ofili, who is now living
in Trinidad.
Kapoor has four years to claim the total sum. However, The
Telegraph cautions: “As [one] of the trustees, Kapoor will
have a say over purchasing policy but he cannot fill the
galleries with either his own or his friends’ works” and
adds reassuringly, “There is a register to ensure there
is no conflict.” This is a cast-iron method to ensure integrity.
The Tate gives several prizes, including the starter prize
for prospective trustees, known as The Turner Prize, which
is worth only £25,000. Its most prestigious award is known
as The Turner Thief Prize and can be worth up to £3,300,000.
It is only given out every few years and its last winner
was a previously unknown Balkans group.
The
Tate has been criticised for its bad timing over the announcement
of the new prize just before the Christmas break, which
is likely to dull the impact of the news during festivities.
In contrast there was a four month media celebration of
Ofili’s win.
|
|
Mark
D comments: "Kapoor is an exceptional talent
and is bound to be producing his best work to date in the
next year or so, necessitating a major Tate purchase, which
will double his market value, so I suggest you go out and
buy his work pronto!"
|
The
Observer Letters (20.5.07)
Laura Cumming mentioned Nicholas Serota's policy when Tate Modern
opened. His words at the Curating Now symposium, Pennsylvania Academy
of the Fine Arts 2000, were: 'Our rule is, simply, that we will
not showcase a private collection.' Obviously, that has changed.
- Charles Thomson, Co-founder, the Stuckists, London
Sunday
Telegraph (18.2.07)
TURNER PRIZE JUDGE CONFLICT OF INTEREST! Well, there's a surprise...
Charles Thomson quoted: "This stinks to high heaven
and will confirm the worst fears of a lot of people who already
think the prize is rigged ... There are no proper procedures for
highlighting and dealing with these conflicts." Link
Letter
in the Independent on Sunday (24.12.06)
Ofili Row
Christopher Silvester pointed out in The Diary (17 December) the
questionable closeness between the Art Fund (whose chairman, David
Verey was formerly Tate chairman) and Sir Nicholas Serota at the
Tate. He pointed out that the Art Fund gave £75,000 towards the
Tate's controversial purchase of their trustee Chris Ofili's work,
The Upper Room. It is worth remembering that the application for
this grant was based on a false application by Serota, who signed
that there had been no prior commitment to the purchase (a grant
condition), whereas the Tate had already paid £250,000 towards it.
Serota blamed this on a "failing in his head". The Art Fund generously
decided that the Tate could keep the money nevertheless. It was
David Verey, when Tate chairman, who suggested that Serota should
seek such additional funding. The Fund stated that their decision
represented no conflict of interest, as Verey was not in the room
while it was taken.
Charles Thomson, Co-founder, The Stuckists, London N2
Ghastly
Tate Triennial - the career path to the Trustee Prize 2006
Jonathan Meese intervention
- something thrown into Whiteread's bland lumps February 2006
CHARITY COMMISSION AGREES WITH STUCKIST CAMPAIGN:
TATE BUYING TRUSTEES' WORK IS ILLEGAL AND UNETHICAL.
Sir Nicholas Serota: The Stuckists
"have acted in the public interest."
Read about it here
|
Those
slides at Tate Modern
Sir Nicholas Serota can't tell the difference
between a funfair and an art gallery Evening
Standard (9.10.06)
"Slides are not art. They're what's known as a children's
playground. Because something is put in the Tate gallery,
it doesn't mean it's art. My shoe is now in the Tate gallery,
because I'm wearing it. It doesn't mean my shoe has become
art. It's still my shoe."
- Stuckism audio interview on NPR
(National Public Radio, America) (20.10.06)
Interview with Charles Thomson on
CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) about Tate slides
here
.
Click on "part two". Interview starts at 15.55.
Realplayer required (free version from
www.real.com) (3.10.06).
|
Tate
trustee John Studzinsksi's firm HSBC backs Tate show as
"a commercial opportunity".
Independent (20.7.06) [missing]
|
Letter
in The Daily Telegraph on recovery of the stolen Turners (12.11.05)
by Michael Daley, ArtWatch UK
Paul Myners (Tate Chairman): "The Tate did not pay a.....reward".
Sandy Nairne (formerly Tate Programmes Director): "We
knew.....a reward would be necessary".
|
Jan
Debbaut, the Tate Director of Collections, leaves in February 2006
after two years in the post. It is not known whether this is
linked with his involvement in the purchase of Tate trustee Chris
Ofili's The Upper Room or whether it is to do with a failing
in the head. (Evening Standard 30.12.05 + Art Newspaper). Article
in Independent
(31.12.05).
Laing
takes a pop at Serota (and Abu Graib) on www.artistica.co.uk
Charles
Thomson, Co-founder of the Stuckists, interviewed about himself
and the Tate gallery on artistica.co.uk
"The result of walking round Tate Modern is not an
experience of the marvel of creative profundity which gives
meaning to life, but more akin to the detritus of a dryly
analytical bureaucrat reverting to an infantile stage during
an extended breakdown."
|
"The
vacuum of the Tate ivory tower" on
Mark Vallen site with Stuckist comments.
|
|
THE
TATE BREAKS THE RULES AGAIN
2000
- "We have a simple policy, which
is not to show private collections"
Sir Nicholas Serota (here)
2006 - £1,000,000 buys 3 galleries in
the Tate for a year for the UBS
private collection .
(Sunday
Telegraph 28.5.06)
Charles Thomson of the Stuckists quoted: "Could I pay for
a small room to house my own work?"
More
on the Tate Modern rehang
The Tate hates individuality and disadvantages the modern
masters of painting, but loves Britart's "refracted conceptual
endgame" ( Financial
Times 25.5.06). It also proudly presents 9 minutes of
Martin ("Vomit") Creed blowing raspberries ( The
Times 24.5.06) with the commendation of Director of Tate
Modern, Vincent Todoli, "you hear it every day of your
life". Quite - so what's the point of putting it in a
gallery then?
|
back
to top
