Tate Liverpool reveals winter 2019 exhibitions

Tate Liverpool has revealed a pair of exhibitions for winter 2019.

The Royal Albert Dock venue will present the first UK solo exhibition of the work of 45-year-old Chicago-born artist Theaster Gates, and also of Swiss-Argentinian artist Vivian Suter.

Theaster Gates: Amalgam will combine sculpture, film, dance and music to explore complex and interweaving issues of race, territory and inequality in the United States.

It takes as its point of departure an island off the coast of Maine called Malaga. In 1912 the islanders were forcibly relocated to the mainland, where they were abandoned without any support, so a tourist destination could be created on their island.

But a century on Malaga remains uninhabited.

The exhibition will comprise of three large-scale works – a 20-minute film, a multi-part installation, and an immersive space populated with ash tree pillars.

Above and top: Amalgam © Theaster Gates and courtesy of the artist. Photo: Chris Strong.

Gates says: “Amalgam brings together so many parts of my practice. Racial mixing is often under-considered as we think about the formation of black consciousness or self-identity.

“So many of us are amalgams in one way or another, but we may not know it.

“This exhibition gives me a chance to reflect on 'the mix' and consider the history of the people of Malaga as a history about both racial prejudice and human possibility.”

Meanwhile Buenos Aires-born Suter will present her recent work Nisyros (Vivian’s Bed) in the Tate’s ground floor Wolfson gallery.

It is her largest installation to date and features 52 large-scale, brightly coloured paintings inspired by the tropical island landscape of Guatemala’s Panajachel where she lives and works in the rainforest.

Here she allows the tropical climate to become an active ingredient in the creation of her work – her paintings incorporating natural substances like volcanic and botanical matter (such as leaves and twigs) as well as micro-organisms. Even a print of her dog’s paw has found its way in to her art.

Theaster Gates: Amalgam is at Tate Liverpool from December 13 to May 4 and Vivian Suter from December 13 to March 16.

Tickets for Theaster Gates are £10.50 with £8.50 concessions, available from the website HERE. The Vivian Suter exhibition is free.