TATE

When Tate first opened its doors to the public in 1897 it had just one site, displaying a small
collection of British artworks. Today, Tate has four major sites and the national collection of
British art from 1500 to the present day and international modern and contemporary art, which
includes nearly 70,000 artworks. A number of new developments are planned for Tate Modern,
Tate Britain and Tate St Ives to ensure the galleries continue to expand.

Tate Modern
In December 1992 the Tate Trustees announced their intentions to create a separate gallery for
international modern and contemporary art in London.
The former Bankside Power Station was selected
as the new gallery site in 1994. The following
year, the Swiss architects Herzog & De Meuron
were appointed to convert the building into a
gallery. That their proposal retained much of the
original character of the building was a key
factor in this decision.
The iconic power station, built in two phases
between 1947 and 1963, consisted of a stunning
turbine hall, 35 meters high and 152 meters
long, with the boiler house alongside it and a
single central chimney. However, apart from a remaining operational London Electricity substation, the site had been redundant since 1981.
In 1996 the design plans were revealed and, following a 12 million grant from the English
Partnerships regeneration agency, the site was purchased and work began. The huge machinery
was removed and the building was stripped back to its original steel structure and brickwork. The
turbine hall became a dramatic entrance and display area and the boiler house became the
galleries.
Since it opened in May 2000, more than 40 million people have visited Tate Modern. It is one of
the UKs top three tourist attractions and generates an estimated 100 million in economic
benefits to London annually.
In 2009 Tate embarked on a major project to develop Tate Modern. Working again with Herzog &
de Meuron, the transformed Tate Modern will make use of the power stations spectacular
redundant oil tanks, increase gallery space and provide much improved visitor facilities.

Collections
The collections in Tate Modern consist of works of international modern and contemporary art
dating from 1900 until today. Some o the most relevant collections are from Pablo Picasso, Andy
Warhol, Salvador Dal and Mark Rothko. Tate Modern displays are presented over four wings on
Levels 2, 3 and 4 in the gallery. At the heart of each wing is a large central display, or hub,
which focuses on one of the pivotal moments of twentieth-century art history. Around the focal
points, a range of displays, moves backwards and forwards in time, showing the predecessors
and sometimes the opponents of each movement, as well as how they shaped and informed
subsequent developments and contemporary art. The introductory room in each wing brings

together work by artists from different generations, to reflect this ongoing dialogue between past
and present.
The current arrangement of the collection exhibitions is:

Poetry and Dream: features a large central room dedicated to Surrealism while the
surrounding rooms feature works by artists influenced by Surrealism and its methods.
Structure and Clarity: Focussing on abstract art
Transformed Visions: Focusing on Abstract Impressionism and related fields after the Second
World War
Energy and Process: focuses on Arte Povera, with work by artists such as Alighiero Boetti, Jannis

Kounellis, Kasimir Malevich, Ana Mendieta, Mario Merz and Jenny Holzer.

Setting the Scene: A smaller section, located between wings, covering installations with
theatrical or fictional themes.

Russian posters
The ideals and illusions of the Russian Revolution and
the Soviet Union are reflected in this display of street
posters.
Ten Days that Shook the World was how the
American journalist John Reed described the 1917
October Revolution. The disasters of the First World
War had led to the collapse of the Tsars autocracy.
Promising peace and the re-distribution of land,
Lenins Bolshevik Party seized power. Supported by
militant soldiers, workers and peasants, they declared
the worlds first Communist state.
To win support for their ideas, the Bolsheviks took
control of the printing presses. Despite a shortage of
supplies and equipment, they rapidly produced
newspapers, leaflets and posters. This proliferation of
colorful propaganda posters transformed towns and cities, creating a street art available to all.
The continual renewal of images, as well as multiple copies pasted up together, reinforced the
fundamental messages of communal power and solidarity. Lenin and the Bolshevik leaders were
portrayed as heroically unifying, while their enemies in the Civil War were reviled.
After Stalin became leader in 1927, the propaganda machine promoted the collectivization of
land and the drive for industrialization, oblivious to the terrible hardships caused by these
policies. Stalins benevolent image was everywhere, but it barely masked the terror of the show
trials and executions that blighted the 1930s. The revolutionary fervor conveyed through the
early posters now enforced a repressive dictatorship.
The ideas and illusions conveyed in these posters were far from reality. However, the posters
themselves became part of the texture of everyday life in the Soviet Union, and reflect the
officially approved history as it was experienced by its citizens.

Capitalists of the World, Unite!

CREDIT LINE
Artist: Viktor Deni (18931946)
Title: Capitalists of the World, Unite!
Date: 1920
Medium: Lithograph on paper
Dimensions: Unconfirmed: 840 x 1050 mm
Location: Tate Modern
CONTEXT
This poster was created two years after the close of the First
World War, which had seen the formation of the disastrous
Treaty of Versailles at the Paris Peace Conference. Neither
Germany nor the new communist government of Russia had
been invited to attend. The Paris Peace Conference also
gave rise to the League of Nations, savagely attacked by Victor Deni in this memorable poster.
The poster is criticizing the great powers, the USA, Great Britain, and France. They are depicted
as fat and rich men, who are doing nothing for the people who are suffering in front of them.
Victor Deni, a superb master of political caricature of his day, introduced smashing satire to the
Soviet propaganda art. His posters mercilessly ridiculed capitalists, corrupt politicians and
spineless yes-man. Deni sought to instruct Russians about whom their enemies were and to raise
the level of their political consciousness.
Viktor Deni began his career as cartoonists during the Revolution and went on to become the
major poster artists of the Bolshevik period (1917-1921). Deni was above all a satirist, and his
artistic style was well established before the October Revolution.
Wildly clever imagery and scathing text characterize his bitingly satirical posters and cartoons,
leaving no question as to who was friend and who was foe in Civil War Russia. Devoted to the
Bolshevik cause, Deni lionized the strong factory worker and noble collective farmer and
demonized the capitalist, imperialist, Tsar, kulak, priest, and White Army general. Heroes are
portrayed with red fists raised in the service of the collective while enemies are shown as
grotesquely fat, wealthy, and uncaring or as savage beasts concealed by a friendly mask.