Light: Works from Tate's Collection now open at ACMI

Light: Works from Tate's Collection now open at ACMI

New additions to the Light events program announced 
All tickets now on sale

See art in a new light this winter

Light: Works from Tate’s Collection, the Australian-exclusive exhibition curated by Tate (UK) featuring 70+ exceptional works harnessing the phenomenon of light across 200 years of art history, is now open at ACMI until 13 November 2022. New additions to the Light events program, including more details for the Light Cinematographer Program featuring Oscar nominee Ari Wegner and award-winning filmmaker Warwick Thornton, have also been announced with all tickets now on sale.

Part of the Melbourne Winter Masterpieces series, presented by Visit Victoria, Light: Works from Tate’s Collection features paintings, photography, sculpture, drawing, installation and the moving image, from world-renowned artists including Joseph Mallord William Turner, John Constable, Bridget Riley and Claude Monet juxtaposed against more contemporary works by Olafur Eliasson, Yayoi Kusama, Tacita Dean and James Turrell.

Minister for Creative Industries Danny Pearson said:
“Melbourne is coming alive this winter with a host of amazing creative experiences.”

“Spanning 200 years of art and packed with light-fuelled masterpieces, this exhibition is the perfect reason to visit the new ACMI and enjoy Melbourne at its creative best."

ACMI’s Acting Director & CEO Graham Jephcott said:
“After much anticipation, the time has arrived for ACMI audiences to experience an unforgettable collection from Tate. With Turner’s monumental painting The Deluge on display in Australia for the first time, alongside 70+ works dedicated to exploring an elemental force so vital to moving image creation, ACMI is overjoyed to be presenting a dazzling exhibition that encourages us all to see art in a new light.”

The exhibition’s opening coincides with the announcement of several new additions to the Light events program, each designed to enhance the visitor experience and audiences’ understanding of light through the lens of art.

Leading the events line-up is the Light Cinematographer Program, which will feature an in-conversation event with Kaytetye-born (Alice Springs) multi-award-winning director and cinematographer Warwick Thornton (Samson and Delilah, Sweet Country) on 15 July in Warwick Thornton x LIGHT. Thornton will discuss his craft and career, before two double bills are screened over the weekend, featuring a film from his back catalogue and a film that inspired him. Audiences can catch Warwick Thornton’s Sweet Country (2017) and Jim Jarmusch’s Down by Law (1986) on 16 July, plus Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas (1984) and Warwick Thornton’s Samson and Delilah (2009) on 17 July.

A second edition of the Light Cinematographer Program will feature an in-conversation event with Oscar nominee Ari Wegner (The Power of the Dog, Zola) on 4 November in Ari Wegner x LIGHT. Wegner will also discuss her craft and career before two double bills screenings over the weekend - each featuring a film from her back catalogue and a film that inspired her. Audiences can experience Robert Bresson’s A Man Escaped (1956) with Dustin Feneley's Stray (2018) on 5 November. The 6 November double bill screening will feature Peter Strickland’s In Fabric (2018) and Mario Bava’s Blood and Black Lace.

The previously announced Liquid Architecture x Light program, an evening of experimental sound and cinema inspired by Lis Rhodes’ 1975 film installation Light Music, now moves to 15 October.

Visitors to ACMI are also invited to discover stories, techniques and the history of key exhibition works through a special in-gallery talk by ACMI Curator Laura Castagnini as part of a monthly Light: ACMI Curator Tour. These tours, offering audiences a deeper dive into the themes and historical context of Light, take place from August to November and will be followed by an opportunity to wander through the exhibition in an exclusive after-hours viewing session.

For more information on the Light events program, including the extensive line-up of talks, film screenings, performances, workshops, late-night exhibition access and more, visit acmi.net.au/light.

Light is also flanked by two major free exhibits:

ACMI’s Gallery 3 features Light Music (1975) by Lis Rhodes, a work that is part of Light: Works from Tate’s Collection and now on display until 23 October. A major figure in the history of artists’ filmmaking in Britain, Rhodes is one of the early proponents of expanded cinema. Light Music positions audiences as both participants and spectators in a work revealing the experimental interrelationship of light and the moving image. 

A major new commission by contemporary Australian artist Mikala Dwyer is also on display in ACMI’s largest foyer. Weights of Light (2022) features a cluster of four monumental transparent forms suspended high above visitors’ heads. Exploring materiality and open-ended narratives, the work hovers between being visible and invisible through the play of light.

Offering a seasonally driven menu developed by Melbourne chef Karen Martini, Hero - ACMI’s day-to-night restaurant, café and wine bar - is offering a special menu with lunch and exhibition ticket packages.

Grab a cocktail from the bar and relax in ACMI’s Light Lounge before exploring Light: Works from Tate’s Collection after hours in our Late Night Access program, including eight Friday evenings and one Saturday evening during the exhibition’s run. 

Light: Works from Tate’s Collection is proudly supported by our generous partners; Creative Victoria, 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. 

The Light exhibition is supported by the Australian Government International Exhibitions Insurance (AGIEI) Program. This program provides funding for the purchase of insurance for significant cultural exhibitions. Without AGIEI, the high cost of insuring significant cultural items would prohibit this major exhibition from touring to Australia.

Light: Works from Tate’s Collection is now open at ACMI until 13 November 2022. Tickets are on sale now for the exhibition and the events program via acmi.net.au/light

NOTES TO EDITORS:

Light: Works from Tate’s Collection
16 June – 13 November 2022
ACMI, Fed Square
Tickets: Full $30 | Concession $27 | Member $25 | Child $10 |
Family (2 adults and 2 kids) $70 | Education $13 | Groups (12+) $25 | Flex ticket $45 |

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

About Light: Works from Tate’s Collection

Curated by Tate in the UK and drawn from their prestigious collection, Light: Works from Tate’s Collection celebrates ground-breaking moments from over 200 years of art history, and the artists who harnessed this elemental force through painting, photography, sculpture, drawing, installation and the moving image.

Connected by their fascination with light as both material and subject, more than 70 works feature in this exclusive blockbuster exhibition, including must-see historical paintings by iconic artists like the great Romantic painter J. M. W. Turner, John Constable, Wassily Kandinsky and Josef Albers, as well as 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 ground-breaking works from modern and contemporary artists: Olafur Eliasson’s crystalline sculpture Stardust Particle (2014), Yayoi Kusama’s kaleidoscopic The Passing Winter (2005), James Turrell’s immersive Raemar, Blue (1969), Tacita Dean’s 16mm film Disappearance at Sea (1996) and Liliane Lijn's moving sculpture Liquid Reflections (1968). Viewed collectively, these radiant works draw fascinating links across time, medium and style, projecting light onto the viewer’s body and absorbing them into visions of infinite lustre and luminosity.

Presented alongside our award-winning centrepiece exhibition The Story of the Moving Image, which explores the essential contribution of light to the moving image, this major exhibition from Tate illuminates centuries of artistic practice and uniquely places film in a broader art historical context.

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 ACMI. The museum 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 program 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.

Images and credits available to download here.