✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

You have reached the limit of free articles.


To enjoy unlimited access to Culture Whisper sign up for FREE.
Find out more about Culture Whisper

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy

Each week, we send newsletters and communication featuring articles, our latest tickets invitations, and exclusive offers.

Occasional information about discounts, special offers and promotions.


OR
LOG IN

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

Thanks for signing up to Culture Whisper.
Please check your inbox for a confirmation email and click the link to verify your account.



EXPLORE CULTURE WHISPER
✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy
Forgot your username or password?
Don't have an account? Sign Up

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

If you click «Log in with Facebook» and are not a Culture Whisper user, you agree to our Terms & Conditions and to our Privacy Policy, which includes our Cookie Use

Support Us Login
  • Home
  • Going Out
    • Things to do
    • Food & Drink
    • Theatre
    • Visual Arts
    • Cinema
    • Kids
    • Festival
    • Gigs
    • Dance
    • Classical Music
    • Opera
    • Immersive
    • Talks
  • Staying In
    • TV
    • Books
    • Cook
    • Podcast
    • Design
    • Netflix
  • Life & Style
    • Beauty
    • Fashion
    • Gifting
    • Wellbeing
    • Lifestyle
    • Shopping
    • Jewellery
  • Explore
  • Shopping
  • CW SHOPS
  • Support Us
  • Get Started
  • Tickets
  • CW SHOPS
Get the Best of London Life, Culture and Style
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
Visual Arts

Review: Shape of Light, Tate Modern, London ★★★★★

02 May 18 – 14 Oct 18, Open until 10pm on Friday and Saturday

One of the most charming London museum exhibitions of the year explores the neglected relationship between photography and abstract art from 1910 to the modern day

By Lucy Scovell on 30/4/2018

4 CW readers are interested
Daisuke Yokota, Untitled, from Abstracts series 2014, Courtesy of the artist and Jean-Kenta Gauthier Gallery © Daisuke Yokota
Daisuke Yokota, Untitled, from Abstracts series 2014, Courtesy of the artist and Jean-Kenta Gauthier Gallery © Daisuke Yokota
Review: Shape of Light, Tate Modern, London 4 Review: Shape of Light, Tate Modern, London Intern Culturewhisper
From kaleidoscopic images by Surrealist photographers to geometric oils on canvas by Abstract Expressionists, the major new Tate Modern exhibition traces the intertwined stories of photography and abstract art from 1910 to the modern day. Featuring over 300 works by more than 100 artists, Shape of Light is a comprehensive and audaciously cerebral exhibition. But pursue the course and reap the rewards: the exhibition ends with a bang.


TRY CULTURE WHISPER
Receive free tickets & insider tips to unlock the best of London — direct to your inbox
In the first exhibition of its kind, cubist, abstract and modernist painters including Georges Braque, Jackson Pollock and Pierre Dubreuil are shown alongside key photographic innovators of their time including, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Nathan Lerner and Gottfried Jaegerand. As a result, striking juxtapositions abound. In the opening gallery one of Piet Mondrian’s instantly recognisable red, yellow and blue geometric compositions hangs handsomely next to a black and white photograph of a window pane by German Lorca.


Lorca believes that ‘photography happens to the photographer, and he makes it happen’. Rather than seeking out a window pane that reflects a Mondrian painting, Lorca has carefully manipulated light, cropped the window pane and altered perspective to do so. The curatorial team, however, are keen to stress that this is not a cultural showdown of who did it first or who did it better, but a showcase of simultaneous experimentation and discovery.


The show is not a precisely chronological overview, but as we journey through the galleries we journey through time. We see developments in techniques and technologies meticulously chartered chapter by chapter; it’s as though the twelve galleries become pages of a metaphorical history book. Tracing the evolution of abstraction, we see rooms devoted to texture and surface, form and function, light drawing, Op Art and Kinetic Art, as well as subjectivity, expression and contemporary abstraction today.




Maya Rochat b.1985, A Rock Is A River, 2018, Tate Modern install view.Courtesy Lily Robert and VITRINE, London | Basel © Maya Rochat. Photo: © Tate (Seraphina Neville)


At the heart of the exhibition is a part-reconstruction of the Museum of Modern Art in New York’s landmark photography exhibition, The Sense of Abstraction. Celebrating the best abstract artists of the 1950s, this exhibition displayed works from Man Ray to Edward Weston. At Tate, we see a little-known series of exquisite Man Ray photographs, taken by swinging a Polaroid camera around and around, hung as they were originally hung in 1960, and a number of important works by Aaron Siskind.


In all of the twelve galleries, the exhibition hang is dense and, at times, a little overwhelming. But, just when the going gets tough, there’s a welcome jolt of colour, an unexpected minimalist canvas, or a gilt gold sculpture to break up abstract monotony. A Bridget Riley spot painting in the tenth gallery together with the exhibition’s finale – a multi-media colourful installation by contemporary artist Maya Rochat – stand out for this reason. Thomas Ruff's experimental photograms crafted in a visual darkroom with a 3-D imaging expert seduce the eyes and mind, too. Challenging the limitations of the medium, Ruff set out to manipulate the size, material, colour and transparency of his digital objects. The finished photogram throbs with energy.


It’s a manifesto Tate exhibition, explains exhibition Senior Curator Simon Baker during the morning’s press conference. It’s a chance for Tate, who owes its now ten-year old photography collection to the work of Baker and his team, to re-insert the history of photography into the well-writ narrative of art history.


It's not a patch on Tate's all singing all dancing Modigliani or Picasso exhibitions, but they have done a sterling job.


What Review: Shape of Light, Tate Modern, London
Where Tate Modern, Bankside, London, SE1 9TG | MAP
Nearest tube Southwark (underground)
When 02 May 18 – 14 Oct 18, Open until 10pm on Friday and Saturday
Price £16, Concessions £15
Website Click here for more information



Most popular

Things to do in London this weekend: 12 - 14 August
Things to do in London this weekend: 12 - 14 August
London's loveliest indoor swimming pools
London swimming pools you can visit without membership
London Theatre Guide: best plays on now in London (Photograph: Peter Lewicki)
London Theatre Guide: best plays on now in London, 2022

Editor's Picks

Best art exhibitions, London, 2018
Best art exhibitions, London, 2018
London Fashion Exhibitions: on now
London Fashion Exhibitions: on now
Best art exhibitions Frieze Week 2019
Best art exhibitions Frieze week 2019
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
4

Art

Gallery

Visual Art

Photography

Tate Modern

Exhibition

You might like

  • Modigliani, Reclining Nude, c.1919 © Tate Modern, Tate Modigliani Show 2017 Modigliani London

    Modigliani Exhibition 2017, review ★★★★★, Tate Modern

  • Pablo Picasso, The Dream, 1932

    Picasso 1932: Love, Fame, Tragedy ★★★★★, Tate Modern

  • Anne Imhof, Eliza Douglas in Faust, 2017.

    BMW Tate Live Exhibition 2019, Tate Modern

  • They Come to Us without a Word II2015Performance at Teatro Piccolo Arsenale, Venice, Italy, 2015.Photo by Moira Ricci.© 2017 Joan Jonas : Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York : DACS, London.

    Joan Jonas, Tate Modern review ★★★★★

  • SUPERFLEX © Tate, Hyundai Commission Turbine Hall 2017

    Hyundai Commission 2017, Tate Modern

  • Modigliani, Tate Modern

    Modigliani, Tate Modern



  • The Culture Whisper team
  • Support Us
  • Tickets
  • Contact us
  • Press
  • FAQ
  • Privacy
  • Terms and conditions
  • Cookies
  • Discover
  • Venues
  • Restaurants
  • Stations
  • Boroughs
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
×