Turner finalists

We hope to be in London for the final and to visit Tate Britain.

Hendrix's Last Basement by Dexter Dalwood Photo: PA

Twenty-six years after it was first awarded (to the painter Malcolm Morley in 1984), Britain’s once reliably controversial Turner Prize risks slumping into early middle age and being greeted with indifference – and not simply because all of the shortlisted artists for this year’s prize are in their forties.

One of Tate director Nicholas Serota’s most eye-catching moves (aside from the creation of Tate Modern) was the deal that he struck with Channel 4 in 1991 to televise the Turner Prize. In the years that followed, many British artists made brash, splashy and provocative work that knowingly incited the media, and made for great television. Newspapers and broadcasters loved reporting their provocations, and artists loved dreaming up ever more outrageous antics to provide fodder for newspapers and broadcasters. It was a potent symbiosis.

More recently, however, things have quietened down: last year’s winner, for instance, was Richard Wright, who makes gentle, exquisite wall paintings that are a world away from the headline-grabbing work of the YBAs who, championed by Charles Saatchi, dominated the 1990s.

It’s as if collectively our attitude to contemporary art has mellowed and matured. A sneaking suspicion that much contemporary art is a load of blather and baloney still lingers among large sections of the population. But I believe that people are now happier to accept work made by living British artists than they were even a decade ago.

The result is that these days it’s hard to get het up about the Turner Prize. This year is no exception. We can’t fulminate about the death of painting, because the shortlist contains two painters (Dexter Dalwood – easily the biggest name on the list – and Angela de la Cruz, nominated for an exhibition at London’s Camden Arts Centre). It seems churlish to revisit the old “But is it art?” argument in the case of Scottish sound artist Susan Philipsz, when sound art has been mainstream for years now.

Only the multi-disciplinary Otolith Group, founded in 2002 by Londoners Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun, and named after the part of the inner ear that helps us to balance, might sound baffling and pretentious.

The great triumph of the Turner Prize was that, during the 1990s, it won a large audience for contemporary art in this country. But, now that this battle has been won, it faces a tricky problem: how can it sustain widespread interest when it no longer feels appropriate to describe the work that is shortlisted each year as “shocking” or “controversial”?

Richard Ansdell R.A.

(Ansdell gave his name to the area around his home as it was developed from 1860 on. The house was named 'Star Hills' which has been inherited by the Methodist Homes for the Aged dwelling now on the site, just across the road from Fosbrooke House).

Biography

Richard Ansdell was born to Thomas Griffiths Ansdell, a ship’s pulley block

maker at Liverpool docks, and Anne (nee Jackson) a seamstress.

His father died when he was young and he was educated at the Bluecoat

School (for orphans). When he left school he trained in art under

W. C. Smith, profile and portrait painter of Chatham, Kent.

Thereafter he went to Holland, painting signs for a circus.

In 1836 he became a student at the Liverpool Academy and eventually

became President in 1845. Prior to this he had married Maria Romer (a Liverpool girl) and they went on to have eleven children – only one dying in infancy. By 1840 he had already exhibited two pictures (“Grouse Shooting: Lunch on the Moors” and “A Galloway Farm”) at the Royal Academy in London. – his largest commission at this time being “The Country Meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society at Bristol” – 16 feet long including 125 separate portraits.

Between 1840 and 1885 he exhibited pictures at the Royal Academy every year (149 in all) and also exhibited some 30 canvases at the British Institution. His popularity was established by two paintings in particular: “The Combat” – two red stags locked in battle; and “The Fight for the Standard at the Battle of Waterloo” being a lifesized depiction of Sgt. Ewart of the Scots Greys grappling for the French Standard at the battle. This huge picture (13 feet X 11 feet) now hangs in the Great Hall of Edinburgh Castle.

In 1847 he left his native Liverpool and moved to Kensington, eventually living in a large house called Lytham House after his beloved Lytham St. Annes in Lancashire where he also had a sizeable residence called Starr Hills. Nowadays the area of the town around Starr Hills is called ‘Ansdell’ after him – as is a street in Kensington.

Richard Ansdell was elected Associate of the Royal Academy in 1861 and Royal Academician in 1870. He became one of the most successful Victorian sporting artists, collaborating on huge canvases with artists such as Thomas Creswick (1811 – 1869) and William Powell Frith (1819 – 1909) placing the animals into their landscapes.

In 1861 Ansdell produced one of his masterpieces “The Hunted Slaves”

– a very effective and popular piece of melodrama (after a Longfellow

poem – “The Dismal Swamp”) with an anti slave trade message.

Now in the International Slavery Museum.

After he had discovered Scotland and had built his own Lodge there on the banks of Loch Laggan, he spent time north of the border whenever he could – painting many Scottish subjects – stags in glens, sheep on hillsides, moorland/mountain scenes, sheep-dipping, everyday scenes in a shepherd’s life, shooting parties.

Many of his paintings were engraved for reproduction and sale on the mass market thus producing valuable income to the artist and ensuring publicity both in the United Kingdom and also in America.

Another fellow artist, John Philip (1817 – 1867) known for his battle and historical scenes, inspired Ansdell to produce a few paintings in the same genre “The Death of Sir William Lambton at the Battle of Waterloo” (Harris Museum, Preston), being one of them. In 1856 Philip and Ansdell travelled to Spain and collaborated on many Spanish pictures – Ansdell travelled to Spain again on his own the following year, producing many paintings with a Spanish theme: “Feeding Goats in the Alhambra” being one such painting. (Also in the Harris Museum)

Ansdell was extremely prolific and hitherto unknown paintings are always coming to light; having been undocumented in family collections since Victorian times. He painted a wide variety of sporting, animal and romantic narrative subjects, and was especially noted for his depiction of many breeds of dogs – executed in fine, realistic detail with a sound knowledge of the subject.

He died at Collingwood Tower near Frimley in Surrey – the last mansion he built truly reflecting his remarkable success as an artist. Popular as a person as well as an artist, he preferred to be known as a Victorian “professional artist”, being realistic, level-headed and loyal to friends and family. He is buried, modestly, in a family plot at Brookwood Cemetery near Woking in Surrey.

© Sarah Kellam 2007

Art in church

Installation by Dome d'Ombre Artists' Collective

St-Martin-on-the- Hill, Albion Rd. South Cliff, Scarborough, YO11 2BY

Website: www.domedombre.com

Dates/Time: 20, 21, 27, 28 June, 10.30am-5.30pm

Dome d'Ombre create evocative, site-sensitive installations where light & shadow transform simple objects & materials into the magical & mysterious.

Viv Mousdell, Jane Robinson & Simon Verhoef have been commissioned by Art Connections to create an experimental new work for the crypt of St. Martin on the Hill. Visitors are invited to enter the subterranean depths to discover & contemplate the 'Source' (Steep steps down make this unsuitable for wheelchair users)

St-Martin-on-the- Hill is a Grade 1 Listed building, an early example of Pre-Raphaelite church building and decoration which brings together the work of William Morris, Webb, Burne-Jones and Rosetti.

Christ at Cookham

(Brings back memories of a personal visit a few years ago)

Spencer developed a naïve style, influenced in part by Giotto and the colourful primitivism of Paul Gauguin.

His most ambitious work was the consequence of his Great War travails: a cycle of 19 paintings for the Sandham Memorial Chapel , which took five years to complete.

Spencer's earthy Christian faith and his preoccupation with death and resurrection are evident in much of his work.

Many paintings such as The Resurrection, Cookham (1923–27), set biblical scenes in the village and depict actual villagers as Biblical characters. Today such works, in the rare event that they come up for auction, sell for immense sums.

During Spencer's lifetime it was his landscapes that were in demand. His dealer would press him to turn out more.Many of his best landscapes are views of his beloved Cookham.

[

    

Sunday Worship 
26/04/2009 

bbc radio 4

Celebrating the spirituality of painter Stanley Spencer. From Holy Trinity Church, Cookham

Sir Stanley Spencer (30 June 1891 – 14 December 1959) was an English painter. Much of his greatest work depicts Biblical scenes, from miracles to Crucifixion, happening not in the Holy Land, but in Cookham, the small village where he was born and spent most of his life; fellow-villagers frequently stand in for their Gospelcounterparts, lending on occasion Christian teachings an eerie immediacy. He referred to Cookham as "a village in Heaven."

Top Nativity Paintings

Top 10 Nativity paintings

From the dazzling to the disturbing,

Richard Dorment picks art's

 most memorable interpretations

 of the birth of Christ

 

 

The Nativity at Night

by Geertgen tot Sint Jans

Painted in the 1480s, Nativity at Night by the Flemish painter

Geertgen tot Sint Jans illustrates the story of Christ's birth as

described by Saint Bridget of Sweden in her mystical Revelations.

Four sources of light illuminate the scene, two earthly, two supernatural.

On the hill in the far distance the shepherds turn from watching their puny

campfire to kneel before an angel who fills the sky with dazzling light.

St Joseph – ineffectual as always, but trying to be helpful – holds a candle.

 This, too, is unnecessary since the radiant body of the baby Jesus

illuminates the faces of His mother and the five solemn little angels who

crowd round His crib. But what makes Geertgen so special is his uncanny

ability to convey a sense of wonder and humility in the mild, round face of

the Virgin Mary bending over the crib. This gift for conveying innocence with

his brush is what makes Geertgen one of the most loveable artists who ever lived.

 

The Nativity

by Piero della Francesca

The unfinished state and ruined condition of Piero della Francesca's

Nativity of 1475-80 only adds to its unsettling psychological atmosphere.

What the picture lacks are the softening transitions between landscape,

objects and figures that unify and make believable the fictive worlds we

see in other Renaissance pictures. Here, the serenely beautiful Madonna

kneels in prayer before the newborn child, but she doesn't incline forwards

to touch or cradle Him. Five adolescents stand behind the child like figures

in a relief by Piero's contemporary, Luca della Robbia. Though wingless and

with their bare feet planted firmly on the ground, their unearthly beauty and

identical height identify them as angels, sent to earth to serenade the child –

though at least one creature in the picture doesn't appreciate their celestial

harmonies: the braying ass in the background. St Joseph is nowhere to be

seen, but the three figures at the right are probably the three kings. Though

they lack the traditional attributes of crowns, rich robes and gifts, one is

seated on a saddle to suggest that he has been on a long journey and

another gestures towards heaven, as though explaining the significance

of the Star of Bethlehem to his companions.

 

Mystic Nativity

by Sandro Botticelli

Botticelli's Mystic Nativity abandons the rules of perspective and proportion –

and with them the order, rhythm and harmony we think of as characteristic

of painting in Florence during the Renaissance. Painted just after the execution

of the reforming preacher Gerolamo Savonarola in 1498, this apocalyptic

image is inscribed with a text announcing the defeat of the Antichrist and the

second coming of our Lord. It shows Jesus, Mary and Joseph as a family of

giants surrounded by the Lilliputian figures of the three kings on one side of

the manger and the shepherds on the other. Above, a circle of dancing angels

hangs suspended from the golden dome of heaven, while in the foreground angels

embrace mortal men, God and sinner reconciled. In its wild, expressionistic rendering

of a familiar subject, there is something neurotic and off-balance in the picture,

a fusion of joy, hysteria and anxiety palpable to us even today.

 

The Adoration of the Shepherds

by Antonio da Correggio

Completed in 1530, The Adoration of the Shepherds is Correggio's most influential

work, known since the 17th century as La Notte ("The Night"). We enter the composition

through three figures at the left who form a receding diagonal to draw the eye towards

the new born infant lying in a manger full of golden hay. The bearded giant and joyful

youth kneeling next to him are the shepherds, while the woman holding a basket full of

ducklings must be a midwife. In the background, St Joseph comically struggles with the

stubborn ass, and we can just make out the traditional ox in the far distance. At the top,

five angels flutter onto the scene like a flock of birds. Once again, divine light emanating

from the Christ Child irradiates the face of the Virgin who bends over her son in a pose of extraordinary gentleness, her serene smile one source of the picture's infectious joy.

 

The Census at Bethlehem

by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

What other artist catches the frigid beauty of bleak midwinter like Pieter Bruegel the Elder?

In this landscape, it's as though we were standing at a slight elevation looking down over a prosperous Flemish village at the time of year when snow covers the hard ground, the sky

is the colour of iron, ponds and lakes have frozen over, and the branches of the trees

are bare. But far from conveying a sense of desolation, Bruegel shows the village as

a hive of activity, a lively community the cold weather only serves to draw closer together.

On the right, some villagers are shovelling snow or skating, while at the left others cluster

round the entrance to the inn or tavern. The huge barrel that's been wheeled onto

the village green suggests that it's the festive season. Then we notice the figures in the foreground – one mounted on an ass, the other walking ahead – and realise that this is no ordinary winter scene but a depiction of the arrival of Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem.

As we know, they will find no room at the inn for the night. By setting the Nativity story in contemporary Flanders, Bruegel gently reminds his viewers to remember the Holy Family.

Be kind to strangers.

 

The Nativity

by Tintoretto

This sublime Nativity is part of the cycle of religious narrative paintings on the Life of

Christ that Tintoretto executed for the Scuola Grande di S Rocco in Venice between

1578 and 1581. The setting is a wooden barn of such dilapidation that the roof is all

but missing, so that golden light from heaven pours down on a scene that unfolds on

two levels. Upstairs in the hayloft, Mary and Joseph adore the infant Jesus, joined by

two midwives who, traditionally, were the first to behold the newborn Saviour – apart,

of course, from the Virgin herself. Below, shepherds reverently kneel at the right, while

one youth stands with an outstretched arm to offer a gift of food to the Holy Family.

Although light is used symbolically in most pictorial renderings of the Nativity, here it

signifies

God's grace, which falls first on His son, the Virgin and St Joseph but then filters

down to representatives of the humanity below. The prominence Tintoretto gives to

the poor shepherd who shares his food with the Holy Family reflects the charitable

activities of the Scuola. The S Rocco Nativity is among the most original conceptions

 of a subject that had been treated in art since the fourth century, its visionary spirituality conveyed through the dynamic composition and the expressive use of light and colour.

 

The Adoration of the Shepherds

by El Greco

El Greco's The Adoration of the Shepherds in the Prado is an intensely personal picture,

painted towards the end of the artist's life not to please a patron but to hang near his tomb.

In it, he dispenses with classical balance and proportion, rational space and harmonious

colours in order to express his devotion to God. The wonderfully elongated figures of the

Virgin, St Joseph and the three shepherds are tilted forward towards the viewer, their faces

and hands lit not from the side, as in most Old Master paintings, but from below. This

 vertical column of flickering light illuminates a harsh palette of orange, lime green, magenta, purple and yellow, a pattern of colour made all the more vivid by the background of deepest

 blue. Though El Greco gives his figures exaggerated, theatrical poses, their reverent gestures convey the awe they feel as they realise that the long-awaited Saviour of mankind has at last arrived. El Greco depicts himself as the elderly shepherd kneeling before the Holy Family,

humbly asking for Mary's intercession with God to have mercy on his soul. Though he was the quintessential visionary painter of the Counter Reformation, his use of distortion and his willingness to treat light and space irrationally make him a curiously modern artist, one who

uses paint not to describe form but to express feeling.

 

The Adoration of the Magi

by Peter Paul Rubens

This wonderfully fluent oil sketch on oak panel by Peter Paul Rubens is one of the treasures

of the Wallace Collection in London. The modello for the great altarpiece Rubens painted for

St Michael's Abby Antwerp around 1624, for me it represents the most complete realisation

of the subject of the Adoration of the Magi in 17th-century art. Despite the crowded, bustling composition, Rubens clearly differentiates each of the Magi in terms of age, personality,

clothing and the gifts they bear. White-bearded Casper, the oldest, kneels before the baby

Jesus to present his gift of gold. Behind him Melchior inclines forward with both hands over

his heart to gaze with rapture on the babe, while, at his feet, a page boy carries his gift of frankincense. Fat, dark-skinned Balthazar wears a turban and a pearl in his ear, holding his

 gift of myrrh in one hand. The composition of the completed altarpiece is more monumental

and thought-out than here, but it doesn't have the vivacity and humour of this sketch. What

could be more comical than the two camels at the top, whose curiosity has been roused by the carry-on in the stables?

 

The Nativity

by Giuseppe Sanmartino

From the end of the 13th century, we hear of life-sized sculptural groups of the Nativity constructed in special rooms for devotional purposes. But it wasn't until the 17th century

 that Nativity crèches as we know them today became truly popular in Catholic countries.

It was the Jesuits who introduced the Christmas crib to Europe as a means of enabling the

faithful to visualise events from the life of Christ. Typically, artists place three-dimensional

figures of the Holy Family against illusionistic landscapes, sometimes using hidden sources

of artificial light to make the scenes look even more realistic. In more elaborate examples, the figures may wear rich fabrics and real jewellery, with details rendered in ivory and coral and

eyes made of glass. In this nativity group from the mid-18th century, which is attributed to the Neapolitan Giuseppe Sanmartino, the miniature figures are made of coloured terracotta and arranged in a wooden, glass-fronted box.

 

The Nativity

by Edward Kienholz

In the 19th and 20th centuries, the subject of the Nativity was relegated to the realms of Bible illustration and Christmas cards. One exception was the American sculptor Edward Kienholz

who made this version of the Nativity between 1961 and 1966 in the form of a painted three-dimensional tableau influenced by the Surrealist practice of assemblage in the 1930s. More

than 8ft high and 15ft long, it is made of wood, metal, galvanised sheet metal and found objects including automobile hood ornaments, the caps of petrol tanks, plastic doll parts, a stuffed toy animal, and bits of glass, jewellery, bones, fabric, and animal fur. Against a triangular wooden backboard surmounted by the Star of Bethlehem, the Christ Child (a blinking traffic warning light with the legs of a doll) lies in an austere wooden trough. He is flanked on one side by the

kneeling Virgin (in her headscarf and with feet made of animal or bird bones) and on the other by a headless stuffed toy poodle. The tall spindly object with a wing and a halo at the left must be an angel, while the three figures just below the star at the centre are the wise men. By the time Kienholz created his Nativity, the age of belief had long been over. It's the artist's wit we admire and not, as in the past, his ability to communicate faith by visual means. And yet one dimension of the sculpture that may not be discernible to the casual viewer does appear to reflect the Christmas message. Kienholz was famous for the ferocity of his imagery. Among the subjects of his life-sized tableaux are a brothel, a mental hospital and figures of the old, the dead and the dying. Here he is sweeter and gentler than anywhere else in his work.

 

Jesus on pebbles

Mystery artist scatters 'Jesus' 

pebbles in town 

ahead of Christmas

A mystery artist has scattered 300 pebbles painted

 with the image of Jesus in a town

in attempt to put "meaning back into Christmas"

 

By Richard Savill 

The Jesus pebbles have been left around Newquay, Cornwall by a local artist 

who wishes to remain anonymous Photo: APEX

The pebbles, featuring Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes, have been placed on bollards, in phone boxes, at cash points, and on window ledges.

Each pebble has been painstakingly painted by a local artist who wishes to remain anonymous.

He said he thought of the idea a few months ago and merely wanted to bring joy and the real message of Christmas to people.

Since September the artist has spent nearly 90 hours painting about 300 pebbles, which he scatters around the Cornish resort of Newquay on certain days.

He leaves the pebbles on top of a little pile of hay, to resemble the stable surroundings.

The pebbles first started appearing across the town on Nov 29.

"It is just to spread the real meaning of Christmas and touch people's hearts," said the artist.

"I actually started off painting them as gifts for people and thought how lovely.

"I thought I would go about it mysteriously."

The artist said Christmas was now "very commercialized."

"People just rush around buying this, that and the other, forgetting about the real message of Christmas, and Christ to me (as a Christian) is the real meaning.

"Christmas celebrates the birth of Christ. And there is nothing else in history that has ever been as big as that to me."

Bel Wilkins, 24, a shop worker, found one of the pebbles when she was at work.

She said: "We just kept it because we thought it was really sweet and we realised, from chatting to other people, that they have got them as well."

Emma Rogers, 19, who works in a coffee shop in the town, said "One was left on the counter for us. I think it's lovely."

Infra

Infra at Covent Garden

Wayne McGregor's first big commission as resident

 choreographer of the Royal Ballet looks at what lies

 beneath the familiar face

Debra Craine

There was a lot riding on this ballet. Wayne McGregor's first big commission as resident choreographer of the Royal Ballet would prove if Monica Mason was right to give him the job, while his follow-up to the wildly successful Chroma (2006) would show if he had more than one Covent Garden hit up his sleeve. Even BBC Television was taking note, filming his every move for a documentary about the making of Infra.

So how clever that his new one-act ballet turned out so well. Infra (highlight of the Royal's latest triple bill) does everything McGregor needed to do at this stage of his career. It shows him moving on with his art, while taking on board what these wonderful dancers are about. His dance language, usually so hyperactive and hyperextended, so cerebral and cool, is here calmer and more passionate.

The first thing that strikes you about Infra is Julian Opie's set. His evocative figures, drawn in outline on a giant LED screen, move back and forth high across the stage, like busy London commuters. Underneath are the live dancers, the inner manifestation of the outer world above. Their memories, fears, dreams and desires are being lived out in the intimacy of their own heads. McGregor's movement may still be a full-body workout (undulating torsos, limbs constantly in motion, muscles yearning to exceed their limits) but it speaks as strongly of compassion and anger, of happiness and anxiety, tenderness and tears.

The music, a new score by the German composer Max Richter, is a melancholic minimalist wash. The choreography (yes, it's on pointe) comes mostly in small groupings - “landscape of miniatures” is how McGregor describes it. So it's a shock when the stage suddenly fills with people and there in the middle is stunning Lauren Cuthbertson, overwhelmed by loneliness, crying her eyes out. Have the figures on the screen come to life and invaded her privacy? Or is her obvious pain what's really going on under the skin of their impassive façade? As they did with Chroma, the Royal's outstanding dancers bring dramatic colouring to the piece, but even so, moments like this show how far McGregor has delved into the emotional potential of his impressive dance palette.

Infra will be shown on BBC Two on Sat at 7.10pm

London Visits(3)

The Unilever Series: Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster  14 October 2008 – 13 April 2009

ESSAY

TH.2058 by Dominique Gonzales-Foerster | Curator Jessica Morgan on the exhibition

October 2058 - Tate Modern - London

It rains incessantly in London – not a day, not an hour without rain, a deluge that has now lasted for years and changed the way people travel, their clothes, leisure activities, imagination and desires. They dream about infinitely dry deserts.

This continual watering has had a strange effect on urban sculptures. As well as erosion and rust, they have started to grow like giant, thirsty tropical plants, to become even more monumental. In order to hold this organic growth in check, it has been decided to store them in the Turbine Hall, surrounded by hundreds of bunks that shelter – day and night – refugees from the rain.

A giant screen shows a strange film, which seems to be as much experimental cinema as science fiction. Fragments of Solaris, Fahrenheit 451 and Planet of the Apes are mixed with more abstract sequences such as Johanna Vaude's L'Oeil Sauvage but also images from Chris Marker's La Jetée. Could this possibly be the last film?

On the beds are books saved from the damp and treated to prevent the pages going mouldy and disintegrating. On every bunk there is at least one book, such as JG Ballard's The Drowned World, Jeff Noon's Vurt, Philip K Dick's The Man in the High Castle, but also Jorge Luis Borges's Ficciones and Roberto Bolaño's 2666.

On one of the beds, hidden among the giant sculptures, a lonely radio plays what sounds like distressed 1958 bossa nova. The mass bedding, the books, images, works of art and music produce a strange effect reminiscent of a Jean-Luc Godard film, a culture of quotation in a context of catastrophe.

In the shelter, the prone figures are reminiscent of Henry Moore's 'shelter drawings', while his sculpture for sheep stands next to a giant apple core by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. Museums have been closed for years because of water seepages and the high level of humidity. In the huge collective shelter that the Turbine Hall has become, a fantastical and heterogeneous montage develops, including sculpture, literature, music, cinema, sleeping figures and drops of rain.

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster

About Tate Modern

Images © Tate

Tate Modern is the national gallery of international modern art. Located in London, it is one of the family of four Tate galleries which display selections from the Tate Collection. The Collection comprises the national collection of British art from the year 1500 to the present day, and of international modern art. The other three galleries are Tate Britain, also in London, Tate Liverpool, in the north-west, and Tate St Ives, in Cornwall, in the south-west. The entire Tate Collection is available online.

Created in the year 2000 from a disused power station in the heart of London, Tate Modern displays the national collection of international modern art. This is defined as art since 1900. International painting pre-1900 is found at the National Gallery, and sculpture at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Tate Modern includes modern British art where it contributes to the story of modern art, so major modern British artists may be found at both Tate Modern and Tate Britain.

Tate Modern celebrates its 5th birthday with a celebratory publication, including essays by the writers Martin Gayford, John Holden, Rowan Moore, Rt Hon Chris Smith, Jon Snow and Tony Travers and includes a reprint of a poem by James Fenton written on the occasion of the opening of Tate Modern.

Tate Modern was created in the year 2000 to display the national collection of international modern art (defined as art since 1900). This forms part of the Tate Collection which is the national collection of British art since 1500 and international modern art. The international modern art was formerly displayed alongside the British art at what was previously the Tate Gallery and is now Tate Britain.

By about 1990 it was clear that the Tate Collection had hugely outgrown the original Tate Gallery on Millbank. It was decided to create a new gallery in London to display the international modern component of the Tate Collection. For the first time London would have a dedicated museum of modern art. At the same time, the Tate building on Millbank would neatly revert to its original intended function as the national gallery of British art.

An immediate problem was whether the modern art gallery should be a new building or a conversion of an existing building, if a suitable one could be found. As a result of extensive consultations, particularly with artists, it was decided to search for a building to convert. When the building that is now Tate Modern presented itself, it appeared something of a miracle. It was a former power station that had closed in 1982, so it was available. It was a very striking and distinguished building in its own right, by the architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. It offered all the space that was required. Not least, it was in an amazing location on the south bank of the River Thames opposite St Paul's Cathedral and the City of London. Plans were almost immediately formulated to build a footbridge to link the new gallery to the City. The fact that the original Tate Gallery was also on the river made a satisfactory symmetry, and meant that the two could be linked by a riverboat service.

An international architectural competition was held attracting entries from practices all over the world. The final choice was Herzog and De Meuron, a relatively small and then little known Swiss firm. A key factor in this choice was that their proposal retained much of the essential character of the building. One of the shortlisted architects had, for example, proposed demolishing the splendid ninety-nine metre high chimney, a central feature of the building.

The power station consisted of a huge turbine hall, thirty-five metres high and 152 metres long, with, parallel to it, the boiler house. The turbine hall became a dramatic entrance area, with ramped access, as well as a display space for very large sculptural projects. The boiler house became the galleries. These are on three levels running the full length of the building. The galleries are disposed in separate but linked blocks, known as suites, on either side of the central escalators. The Tate collection of modern art is displayed on two of the gallery floors, the third is devoted to temporary exhibitions. Above the original roofline of the power station Herzog and De Meuron added a two-storey glass penthouse, known as the lightbeam. The top level of this houses a café-restaurant with stunning views of the river and the City, and the lower a members room with terraces on both sides of the building, the river side one offering the same stunning views as the restaurant. The chimney was capped by a coloured light feature designed by the artist Michael Craig-Martin, known as the Swiss Light. At night, the penthouse lightbeam and the Swiss Light mark the presence of Tate Modern for many miles.