Late at Tate Britain

© Tate

Late at Tate Britain runs on the first Friday of each month from 18.00-22.00. It is the perfect opportunity to explore art after hours, relaxing with a drink and enjoying exhibitions, performances, music, talks and films. All events are free, and exhibition entry is half price.

For more information, visit the Late at Tate Britain facebook page.

The next Late at Tate to be curated by Paul Goodwin, the Cross Cultural Curator, will be Afrodizzia on 4 February 2010, celebrating the forthcoming Chris Ofili exhibition.

© Tate

Previously Paul curated the Late at Tate Britain in March 2009, responding to the Tate Triennial, Altermodern.

Altermodern: Remix explored some of the themes raised by the idea of Altermodernity in music, contemporary art and society. The concept of remixing was taken into the gallery with DJ sets from CDR, free-style poetry from Platform 21, and discussions on docu-fiction with the Delfina Foundation.

Check out the video of the evening made by CDR…

CDR Late @ Tate Britain from burntprogress on Vimeo.

2013

Laura Oldfield Ford

© The artist, 2009

Laura Oldfield Ford

Laura Oldfield Ford
Abandoned McDonalds
© The artist

Series two of Conversation Pieces begins with Laura Oldfield Ford considering the apocalyptic work of John Martin in the Sublime Display in Room 9, which will be visited as part of the talk.

Her own work depicts dystopian scenes and post-apocalyptic urban ruins. Taking her immediate habitat as inspiration, Ford makes work that imagines a future London which simultaneously sifts through the detritus of history. She weaves in narratives and personal histories, both her own and others occupying the same territory through past, present and future, resulting in an examination of London through different lenses. Semiotic ghosts haunt the desolate landscapes depicted in ballpoint pen, fluorescent spray paint and acrylic.


Laura Oldfield Ford
Savage Messiah Issue 8
© The artist

Since 2005 Ford has been making a zine called 'Savage Messiah' which uses apocalyptic language and imagery to create a sense of prescience and unease. Religious references are recuperated to scry into Britain's socio-economic future. Responding to the gentrification, or 'yuppification', of east London, Ford wishes to activate the past in order to conjure up a different future of ruptures in the smooth space of late capitalism.

Ford, originally from Halifax, West Yorkshire, completed a Fine Art Painting MA at The Royal College of Art in 2007 and has since become well known for her politically active and poetic engagement with London as a site of social antagonism.

In one sense the drawings allow for a chronicling of a disappearing London, and she has recently produced over a hundred ballpoint pen drawings as part of an ongoing project chronicling the impact of regeneration on London, 2013, Drifting through the ruins.

The drawings form a broken narrative, focusing on the part of east London currently being cleared for the 2012 Olympic site. Ford has made many walks through these abandoned areas and imagines them populated by the semiotic ghosts of failed utopias in the year 2013.

She writes on her website 'The London I conjure up in these drawings is imbued with a sense of mourning. These are the liminal zones where the free party rave scene once illuminated the bleak swathes of marshland and industrial estates'.

To view some more of Laura Oldfield Ford's work please click here.