March 10, 2019–February 28, 2020
Featuring: Adam Khalil and Bayley Sweitzer, Tsai Ming-liang, Gürcan Keltek, Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt, Mox Mäkelä, Tony Cokes, Albert Serra, Eduardo Williams with Mariano Blatt, Carlos Casas, Helena Wittmann, Coco Fusco, Dóra Maurer, Jill Magid, Sky Hopinka, Marcia Hafif, James Richards and Leslie Thornton, Nástio Mosquito, Pan Daijing
Tate Film’s cinema programme is conceived as an exhibition unfolding over the span of a year. A stage for unique encounters with artists’ film in all its forms, the programme strives to highlight the diversity of approaches that define and expand this field. It brings together the films of both emerging and established artists and filmmakers working in different traditions of cinematic and artistic practice. Presenting these works within the context of the contemporary art museum, the programme situates them within a larger art historical frame, highlighting continuities with and challenges to various lineages.
Structured into three regular strands—Pioneers, Artists’ Cinema and Counter-Histories—the cinema programme draws new and historical works into unexpected dialogues along various curatorial lines. Screenings are always accompanied by conversations with the artists in which underlying ideas, methods and threads within their practice are drawn out.
The 2019 cinema programme weaves together intergenerational conversations, global perspectives, performance, music, expanded cinema and numerous different manifestations of artists’ film—including epistolary, meditative, photographic and essayistic approaches as well as performative takes and artists’ features.
Pioneers
The Pioneers strand presents curated surveys of filmmakers and artists whose works have proposed new approaches to the moving image.
This year’s Pioneers series opens with a selection of films and a masterclass by Malaysian-born, Taiwanese artist and filmmaker Tsai Ming-liang, known for his long takes, painterly approaches to light and colour, and poignant portrayals of urban and sexual alienation. A weekend dedicated to the work of American artist Tony Cokes includes screenings of his groundbreaking videos, a performative lecture and scenography conceived for the Starr Cinema. Finally, a programme examining the films of Marcia Hafif highlights the late American artist’s singular approach to the audiovisual essay, which draws together aspects of her writing, visual art, feminist politics and artistic networks.
Artists’ Cinema
Focused on contemporary forms of moving image practice, this series presents previews, premieres or unique presentations of films followed by discussions with the artist.
The 2019–20 series at Tate Modern includes the premiere of new films by Adam Khalil and Bayley Sweitzer, Gürcan Keltek, Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt, Mox Mäkelä, Albert Serra, Eduardo Williams with Mariano Blatt, Carlos Casas, Helena Wittmann, Jill Magid, Coco Fusco and Sky Hopinka. The series will also include site-specific and live events with James Richards and Leslie Thornton and Nástio Mosquito.
Counter-Histories
The Counter-Histories strand presents thematic programmes that challenge stereotypes of historical movements in film and art history.
This year’s Counter-Histories series surveys the artists’ films made within the context of Budapest’s former Béla Balázs Studio, paying particular attention to structuralist, conceptual, and self-reflexive approaches. The programme complements Tate Modern’s free exhibition of Hungarian artist Dóra Maurer, extending the exhibition into the cinema environment to consider Maurer’s films alongside those of her peers.
The Tanks
Tate Film is pleased to be presenting Tissues, a live, site-specific play by Chinese artist and composer Pan Daijing, which will inhabit the cavernous spaces of the Tanks at Tate Modern over the first week of October. Conceived as an opera and written, scored, and directed by the artist herself, Tissues unfolds as a cinematic manifestation of its protagonist’s psychological states as they pursue mental and bodily transformations.
Tate Modern’s cinema programme is curated by Andrea Lissoni, Senior Curator, International Art (Film) and Carly Whitefield, Assistant Curator, Film. The programme is produced by Judith Bowdler, Production Manager Curatorial.
For press enquires, please contact pressoffice [at] tate.org.uk.
Tate Film is supported by In Between Art Film
