ACMI presents Light: Works from Tate’s Collection

See art in a new light: ACMI presents 70+ masterpieces spanning 200 years from renowned British art institution Tate

Exclusive Melbourne Winter Masterpieces exhibition
Light: Works from Tate’s Collection 

ACMI, in an Australian exclusive, will present a major exhibition of more than 70 works from the national collection of renowned British art institution, Tate.

Light: Works from Tate’s Collection will premiere 16 June – 13 November 2022 as part of the Victorian Government’s Melbourne Winter Masterpieces series. Curated by Tate, UK and drawing from its prestigious collection, Light features over 70 works spanning 200 years of art history including painting, photography, sculpture, drawing, kinetic art, installation and the moving image.

The theme of light has been refracted through the lens of art in countless ways: from the sublime to the intimate, from the spiritual to the scientific. Light celebrates groundbreaking moments as artists from the past 200 years have captured or harnessed light in their work – from Joseph Mallord William Turner and Claude Monet to James Turrell and Tacita Dean. All are connected by their fascination with the qualities of light as both material and subject.

The challenge of capturing this phenomenon has spurred artists across time to develop innovative techniques and inspired moving image makers, who use light and shadow as the building blocks of their craft. French artist, filmmaker and writer Jean Cocteau said: “Cinema is the form of modern writing whose ink is light.”

Presented alongside ACMI’s award winning permanent exhibition The Story of the Moving Image, which places the 19th Century arrival of the moving image within a continuum spanning thousands of years of storytelling, this major touring exhibition from Tate explores how light has inspired artists, uniquely placing film in a broader art historical context.

Featured artists include the original and, in his time, radical ‘painter of light’ J. M. W. Turner, whose epic 1805 painting The Deluge will be seen for the first time in Australia alongside paintings by John Constable, Wassily Kandinsky, Bridget Riley, Josef Albers and the atmospheric beauty and transient light effects captured by Impressionist painters Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and Alfred Sisley. These extraordinary paintings are juxtaposed against equally groundbreaking contemporary artists’ works. Olafur Eliasson’s spectacular rotating crystalline sculpture Stardust Particle (2014) refracts light onto the viewer’s body; Yayoi Kusama’s The Passing Winter (2005) reflects the viewer in its kaleidoscopic vision; James Turrell’s Raemar, Blue (1969) envelops the viewer in infinite and immersive light; and Tacita Dean’s 16mm film Disappearance at Sea (1996) transfixes with the materiality of light projected through celluloid.

Minister for Creative Industries Danny Pearson said: “Winter in Melbourne will offer a radiant new experience from ACMI as they partner with Britain’s famed art institution Tate, to deliver their latest exhibition Light. The new exhibition offers even more reasons to explore the culture capital of Australia and everything it has to offer.”

ACMI Director and CEO Katrina Sedgwick said: “This is a rare opportunity to experience the expansive collection of one of Britain’s most famous cultural institutions right here in Melbourne. ACMI is proud to present a treasure trove of artworks inspired by a phenomenon so fundamental to moving image creation.Through its exploration of light as both a subject and a medium this extraordinary exhibition enables our visitors to explore surprising and enlightening interconnections across time and artform."

Neil McConnon, Director of International Partnerships at Tate, said: “Tate and ACMI hold a shared purpose to make art both accessible and relevant to diverse and growing audiences. It is with great anticipation that we see the exhibition Light, which includes many of Tate’s most prized artworks from the breadth of the collection, travel to Melbourne to be enjoyed by a new generation of visitors in another part of the world.”

Light is also flanked by two major, free exhibits. A major new commission by contemporary Australian artist Mikala Dwyer will be displayed in ACMI’s lightwell. Featuring a cluster of monumental transparent plastic forms suspended high above visitors’ heads, the work explores materiality, open ended narratives and the play of light.

Gallery 3 will feature another work from the Tate Collection, Light Music (1975), by Lis Rhodes, a major figure in the history of artists’ filmmaking in Britain. As one of the early proponents of expanded cinema, Rhodes positions audiences as both participants and spectators in a work revealing the experimental interrelationship of light and the moving image.

A program of talks, film screenings, performances, workshops and late-night events will accompany and extend the ideas explored in the exhibition, including masterclasses with leading cinematographers, performances, artist talks, magic lantern and 16mm presentations and more. 

Originally curated for the Museum of Art, Pudong in Shanghai, Light: Works from Tate’s Collection comes to ACMI from Buk-Seoul Museum of Art, Korea. 

The exhibition will take place in ACMI’s Gallery 4 as a ticketed event, with free programs built around it throughout ACMI spaces, including Gallery 3.

Light: Works from Tate’s Collection opens at ACMI on 16 June 2022. Sign up to the waitlist to get special access to tickets plus exclusive bonus content. Visit the ACMI website for further info.

Light: Works from Tate’s Collection is proudly supported by our generous partners; Presenting Partner Visit Victoria, Major Research Partner RMIT University, Major Academic Partner Swinburne University of Technology, Supporting Partners About Space Lighting, City of Melbourne, Fujifilm instax, Lil’Stones, Sofitel Melbourne on Collins and Media Partners Broadsheet, Smooth 91.5, The Australian, The Saturday Paper & Val Morgan. 

NOTES TO EDITORS:

Images and credits available to download here.

Light: Works from Tate’s Collection
16 June – 13 November 2022 ACMI, Fed Square

Opening hours
Mon – Fri: 12–5pm
Weekends and school holidays: 10am–6pm 

Exhibition highlights include:

• J.M.W Turner’s epic painting The Deluge (1805) - appearing in Australia for the first time
• Claude Monet’s atmospheric painting The Seine at Port-Villez (1894)
• James Turrell’s immersive LED light installation Raemar, Blue (1969)
• Tacita Dean’s transfixing 16mm film Disappearance at Sea (1996)
• Yayoi Kusama’s kaleidoscopic peep-in sculpture The Passing Winter (2005)
• Olafur Eliasson’s spectacular sculpture Stardust Particle (2014).

About ACMI:

ACMI is Australia’s national museum of screen culture. The museum reopened in February 2021 after a two-year, $40 million redevelopment – an architectural, programmatic and technological transformation. Navigate the universe of film, TV, videogames and art with us. ACMI celebrates the wonder and power of the world’s most democratic artform – fostering the next generation of makers, players and watchers. ACMI’s vibrant calendar of exhibitions, screenings, commissions, festivals, and industry and education programs explore the stories, technologies and artists that create our shared screen culture. More at acmi.net.au

About Tate:

Tate is a family of galleries in the UK that includes Tate Britain and Tate Modern in London, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. Spanning 500 years, Tate’s collection holds the national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. Tate is recognised internationally as a leading art institution and has a major international touring programme which sees these artworks travel to galleries across Britain and around the globe.

Tate has long been engaged with Australian art and artists, including through the staging of exhibitions such as Love and Desire: Pre-Raphaelite Masterpieces from Tate at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra in 2018.

About Melbourne Winter Masterpieces at ACMI: 

ACMI has been part of the Victorian Government’s annual Melbourne Winter Masterpieces series since 2007, bringing major international exhibitions such as Disney: The Magic of Animation, David Bowie Is... and Hollywood Costume exclusively to Melbourne, and creating multi-award-winning blockbusters that have subsequently toured the world. More than 1.4 million local, interstate and international visitors have experienced a Melbourne Winter Masterpiece exhibition at ACMI, with the museum's homegrown touring exhibitions such as Game Masters, DreamWorks Animation: The Exhibition and Wonderland attracting over 4 million visitors across five continents.