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Annual Report 2019 1 Cover Image TATE AMERICAS FOUNDATION ANNUAL REPORT 2019 1 COVER IMAGE HELEN FRANKENTHALER Vessel 1961 Oil paint on canvas 2540 x 2390 mm Presented by the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation (Tate Americas Foundation) 2019 © 2020 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York 4 TRUSTEES 6 INTRODUCTION 8 ART ACQUISITIONS 26 COMMITTEES 28 INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL 30 DONORS CONTENTS 34 CONTRIBUTION CATEGORIES 2 3 TRUSTEES Pamela Joyner (Chair through March 2020) Abigail Baratta Eugenia Braniff Paul Britton (Chair beginning May 2020) Estrellita Brodsky Wendy Fisher Glenn Fuhrman Bob Rennie (President beginning May 2020) Jay Rivlin Komal Shah Kim Shirley Jay Smith John Studzinski CBE EX-OFFICIO TRUSTEES Tiqui Atencio Demirdjian (Co-Chair, Latin American Acquisitions Committee) Gregory R Miller (Co-Chair, North American Acquisitions Committee) Erica Roberts (Co-Chair, Latin American Acquisitions Committee Christen Wilson (Co-Chair, North American Acquisitions Committee STAFF Catherine Carver Dunn (Executive Director) Daniel Schaeffer (Head of Development) Meredith Gerrick (Finance and Operations) TRUSTEES 4 5 It is a great pleasure to present the 2019 Annual Report of the Tate Americas Foundation. This is a bittersweet report for me, as the Foundation has experienced great successes but it will be my last report as Chair of the Tate Americas Foundation. I joined the Board in 2015, was elected Chair in 2017 and it has been an absolute honor to serve this dynamic organization during these past two years. I am proud of the growth we have achieved and look forward to continuing to champion Tate as a Tate Americas Foundation Trustee. Paul Britton was elected Chair of the Board and Bob Rennie was elected President beginning May 2020 and both will be tremendous leaders for the Tate Americas Foundation and Tate. We are also fortunate to have welcomed four new trustees to the Board in 2019 --- Abigail Baratta, Eugenia Braniff, Wendy Fisher, and Kim Shirley. Each of these women is a dedicated advocate of art and will contribute brilliantly to Tate. These four new trustees further enhance our dedicated Board whose passion and intelligence made my job so easy and enjoyable throughout the years: Estrellita Brodsky, Glenn Fuhrman, Jay Rivlin, Jay Smith, John Studzinski CBE, Tiqui Atencio Demirdjian, Gregory Miller, Erica Roberts, Christen Wilson. Tate Director Maria Balshaw has set a bold and meaningful path forward for Tate, expanding transnational art and reminding us that that a global collection and global curatorial expertise makes a stronger Tate. Balshaw has tackled the climate crisis head on, making a pledge to cut Tate’s carbon footprint by at least 10 percent in the next three years. All the while she has made certain Tate embraces bold, adventurous programming at each site. This past year alone, Tate has led the artworld with important exhibitions featuring artists from North and Latin American including Tania Brugera and Kara Walker at Tate Modern, Frank Bowling at Tate Britain, Sol Calero and Keith Haring at Tate Liverpool, and Vivian Suter and Theaster Gates at Tate Liverpool. The Tate Americas Foundation produced a number of educational and exciting travel programs exploring art in Bogota, Miami, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, and Vancouver. It hosted another unforgettable Artists Dinner gala at the studio of Lorna Simpson, this year honoring five brilliant women artists all with works currently or soon to be displayed at Tate: Aliza Nisenbaum, Lorna Simpson, Sarah Sze, Cecilia Vicuna, and Anicka Yi. On top of this, the Tate Americas Foundation received $16.9 million in gifts and art. Through grants to Tate, we were able to provide crucial support to a number of projects including major acquisitions of art, groundbreaking exhibitions such as Steve McQueen and Frank Bowling, and transformational capital programs. Ultimately though all this bold programming and institutional support is only made possible through the continued support of our wonderful patrons. Thank you to all the dedicated Board members, Committee members, patrons, and donors that have continued to support the Tate Americas Foundation. Through your combined efforts we have increased our programming, increased our reach, and increased our ability to provide support for Tate and continue to make it such an important museum special institution. Thank you so much for all your generosity and dedication. We are truly grateful. Pamela Joyner INTRODUCTION Chair, Tate Americas Foundation 6 7 ART VIVIAN SUTER Nisyros (Vivian’s Bed) 2016-17 Lent by the Tate Americas Foundation, courtesy of the International Council and the Latin American Acquisitions ACQUISITIONS Committee 2019 8 9 HELEN FRANKENTHALER Helen Frankenthaler (1928−2011) has long been recognized as one of the most important American artists of the twentieth century. Through the development of her ‘soak-stain’ technique in the early 1950s – whereby she poured thin paint onto raw, unprimed canvas laid directly on the floor – she played a pivotal role in the transition from abstract expressionism to colour field painting. Frankenthaler has received countless exhibitions and her work is held in major collections worldwide. Vessel is a large-scale oil painting on canvas produced by the artist in 1961. Executed using her signature ‘soak-stain’ technique, it depicts a mass of abstract forms in shades of blue, burgundy and ochre which sit in the centre of an empty white canvas. Many of these forms are surrounded by an oil-stain ‘halo’ – caused by diluted oil paint bleeding out from areas of applied pigment. The artist then used a paint brush to add detail to the composition, with translucent washes of colour and splattering in the bottom right-hand corner. Vessel was first shown at André Emmerich Gallery in New York in 1961 and later included in the artist’s 1969 retrospective, which began at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and travelled to the Whitechapel Gallery, London, the Orangerie Herrenhausen, Hanover and the Kongresshalle, Berlin. Whilst Vessel demonstrates Frankenthaler’s accomplished technique and interest in compositional interplay, it also evidences the rich artistic circle within which she worked. In particular, it suggests an affinity with sculptor David Smith (1906–1965), with whom Frankenthaler held a close friendship following her introduction through Clement Greenberg in 1950. Evoking Smith’s sculpture in what Elderfield terms its ‘frontality, planarity, and implied transparency’, as well as its solid grounding in space at the centre of a white space, Vessel demonstrates the artists’ shared conception of pictorial space. Hannah Johnston and Mark Godfrey August 2019 HELEN FRANKENTHALER Vessel 1961 Oil paint on canvas 2540 x 2390 mm Presented by the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation (Tate Americas Foundation) 2019 © 2020 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York 10 11 SAM GILLIAM Carousel Change 1970 by Sam Gilliam (born 1933) is a suspended painting produced in Washington D.C. in 1970. Fabricated from cotton canvas saturated with acrylic paint, it is – in its current configuration which has been approved by the artist’s studio – displayed against a wall, suspended from five points at which the fabric is gathered with a leather string so that the material drapes and falls in flowing forms, extending down the length of the wall almost to meet the floor. Produced with a palette of bright and vibrant colours, including reds, yellows, blues and greens, Carousel Change is painted with a pattern of fluid abstract forms. Viewed by the artist as a way of exploring form and composition, the casting aside of the canvas stretcher bars transforms works such as Carousel Change from paintings into sculptural objects. Hung on the wall using leather string rather than wire or metal fixings, the canvas is celebrated as a material in its own right. No longer simply a vehicle for the paint, it is an integral part of the work as a whole and a meaningful contributor to its aesthetic and impact. Envisaged as dynamic objects, the drape paintings must be reimagined each time they are installed. Hung in different arrangements against the wall and from the ceiling, or draped across architectural elements, they are characterised by chance, uncertainty and flux. Continuously open to reinterpretation, they are, in essence, performative objects; staged anew each time they are installed with an understanding that each configuration is only one of a range of possibilities. Attributed the enigmatic titleCarousel Change – a reference, perhaps, to the circular movement and rhythm of a carousel, or the folds of brightly coloured cloth that animate its canopy as it makes its rotations – this work bridges the gap between painting, installation and performance. Hannah Johnston March 2013; updated May 2018 SAM GILLIAM Carousel Change 1970 Acrylic paint on canvas and leather string 3000 x 23370 mm Presented by Pamela J. Joyner and Alfred J. Giuffrida (Tate Americas Foundation) 2018 12 13 DUANE LINKLATER Duane Linklater (born 1976) is an Omaskêko Cree artist whose practice examines museum structures from a critical and material standpoint, drawing these frameworks into dialogue with the conditions of indigenous communities and their approaches to materials. He articulates these considerations through sculpture, video, photography and text, as well as through his discursive work with the Wood Land School. The Wood Land School is a nomadic project that centres indigenous positions and
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