Turner Contemporary Autumn Exhibition

Turner Contemporary has been a vocal point of our shoreline in Margate for seven years now and in that time has attracted three million visits, it has exhibited the work of over 500 artists, as well as pumping £68 million into the local economy. Tonight, it will attract and welcome further visits, as it opens its door to the public for a first look at the Autumn exhibition, Patrick Heron & Akram Zaatari ‘The Script’. The doors open at 17:30 and the exhibition will be opened by the Director of the Tate, Maria Balshaw CBE. CommunityAd went along to the press screening earlier today (18/10/18), Turner Contemporary’s Director, Victoria Pomery OBE addressed the press with delight as she believed the exhibition was looking “really beautiful”. Wandering through the gallery we were hoping for a similar thrill that was given by Turner Contemporary’s summer exhibition, ‘Animals & Us’.

We were not disappointed in the slightest, Cornelia Parker’s Perpetual Cannon (left) floats in the foyer, centre stage in front of a back drop of blue skies , dangling beautifully are flattened brass instruments. The installation celebrates the 250th anniversary of the royal academy, of which Turner himself was a big advocate.

Autumn is a sensational season of beautiful colours, as summer slowly fades and Turner Contemporary have incorporated this, celebrating the British artist, Patrick Heron (1920-99). Victoria Pomery stated ‘this show is an opportunity to re-evaluate Heron’s paintings’. The abstract artist who was influenced by both France and the US played a crucial part in the development of abstract art in the post-war world. In 1962 he explicitly claimed that “colour is both the subject and the means; the form and the content; the image and the meaning, in my painting today”. This is the first major show of his work for twenty years, which opened at Tate in St Ives on the 19th May and is traveling to our shores for our viewing at Turner Contemporary this autumn.  Sara, curator of the Tate St Ives, revealed that when hanging the exhibition they encountered creative problems of where certain paintings should go, so this installation is a completely different experience to the one of Heron’s previous home at St Ives. Turner Contemporary worked closely with Heron’s children who helped the gallery acquire as set of gouaches that were painted by the artist very close to his death, that have never been exhibited before. Heron remains one of the most significant and innovative figures in 20^th century British art, he played a major role in the development of post-war abstract painting. One of his paintings is the featured image at the top of this page but there there is something lost in the photograph that can only be felt when surrounded by them in their grandeur and their playful colour.

Also on offer this autumn at Turner Contemporary is ‘The  Script’,  a  new  exhibition  by  Akram  Zaatari. The internationally renowned Lebanese artist whose work is based on researching and studying the photographic record in the context of modern Arab societies.  Through his practice, Zaatari seeks to explore people’s attitudes while filming or photographing themselves. ‘The Script’ is definitely the contemporary counterpart of Heron’s by gone but still relevant abstract work, as usual this is a Turner contemporary outing that offers a superb variety within the one exhibition. Akram’s work is focused around film, the element of performance, with particular attention to Youtube, the second largest website in the world is estimated to have users upload 400 hours of footage a minute. Making Akram’s art extremely relevant for the fast paced indulgent world we live in and making it a must see exhibition for the modern day art fan. His powerful film address identity, Muslim practices and father and son relationships. When putting the exhibition together Victoria confessed she didn’t know where the link between Zaatari’s work and Heron’s painting did lay, but its the sense of play that the children in Akram’s film demonstrate that is also expressed in Heron’s abstract strokes. As well as this it could be argued there is a sense of ‘Family’ within this autumns exhibition as Heron’s children were directly involved and Akram’s film depicts children doing what they do best. Here at CommunityAd we’re sure it is definitely worth taking your family to the Turner Contemporary this autumn.