Sunday Arts Magazine

13 Jun 2022

Light: Works from Tate’s Collection

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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.