Nicholas Serota

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sir Nicholas Serota

Sir Nicholas Andrew Serota CH (born April 27, 1946 in London ) is a British art historian . Since 1988 he has headed the Tate Britain Painting Museum in London.

Training and career beginnings

Modern Art Oxford

Nicholas Serota is the son of Stanley and Beatrice Serota . He grew up in Hampstead . His father was a civil engineer and his mother a minister, senior administrative officer and later life peeress . Serota attended Haberdashers 'Aske's Boys' School and enrolled in economics at Christ's College , Cambridge , before switching subjects and studying art history . He graduated from the University of London's Courtauld Institute of Art with a Masters Degree ; his thesis had the work of the painter William Turner on the subject.

In 1969 Serota became chairman of the new Young Friends of the Tate association with 750 members. The association took over a building on Pear Place , south of Waterloo Bridge , where lectures were given and painting classes were offered on Saturdays for children from the area. The Young Friends organized their own events and applied for financial support from the Arts Council of Great Britain . The then Tate board of directors and the curators asked them to refrain from doing so, as they feared that the Young Friends' actions would be seen as "official". Serota and the entire board resigned, whereupon the association disbanded. The following year Serota became department head at the Arts Council of Great Britain , responsible for regional exhibitions. In 1973 he became director of the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford . There he organized a highly regarded exhibition with works by Joseph Beuys .

Whitechapel Gallery

In 1976 Nicholas Serota was appointed director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London's East End . This museum had a good reputation but suffered from financial difficulties. Serota gathered a high-class staff in Whitechapel and organized influential exhibitions of works by Carl Andre , Eva Hesse and Gerhard Richter, as well as early exhibitions by emerging artists such as Antony Gormley . In 1980, with the assistance of his longtime collaborator Alexander Nairne, he organized a two-part exhibition on British sculpture in the 20th century with a range that had never before been seen in Great Britain. In 1981 he was in charge of The New Spirit in Painting for the Royal Academy with Norman Rosenthal and Christos M. Joachimides .

The exhibitions that Serota organized often met with negative critics in the press, who reacted with aversion to contemporary avant-garde art. This kept Serota at a distance from the British establishment , while enjoying an increasingly excellent reputation in the international art world. From 1984 to 1985 Nicholas Serota had the Whitechapel closed for twelve months due to extensive renovation work. Another one-story building with a restaurant, lecture hall and other rooms was built on an additionally acquired property. The cultivation was widely received but resulted in a deficit of £ 250,000 . In 1987 Serota made a profit of 1.4 million pounds at an auction of works of art provided by artists, with which he could not only pay off the gallery's debts but also set up a fund to finance future exhibitions of unconventional art can. Because of this success, Serota was appointed director of the Tate Gallery in 1988 and knighted a bachelor's degree the following year .

Director of the Tate Gallery

The Tate Gallery , now Tate Britain
Tate Gallery of Modern Art

News of Nicholas Serota's appointment as director of the Tate Gallery was greeted enthusiastically by the Sunday Times columnist : “ Nick Serota has enormous energy and demonstrated at the Whitechapel a tremendous sense of diplomacy. He is a passionate man, and indeed is quite unusual in this country in his commitment to modern painting and sculpture. “ Modern Painters magazine's Peter Fuller, however, harshly criticized Serota's appointment; the temperament and talent of the latter are incapable of looking after the historical collection of the Tate .

It had been known for around two decades that the Tate Gallery would have to be enlarged. With the founding of the National Lottery , prospects opened up to use their funds to tackle the expansion of the museum. In 1995 the Tate Gallery received £ 52 million to convert the former Bankside Power Station in Bankside into the Tate Modern . The final construction cost was £ 135 million; Serota managed to acquire the shortfall from private sources. The Tate Modern opened in 2000 and quickly became a tourist magnet. In addition to permanent exhibitions of works by Louise Bourgeois and Anish Kapoor , among others , the museum held successful exhibitions with works by Donald Judd , Pablo Picasso , Henri Matisse and Edward Hopper .

Art and criticism

Turner's painting Light and Color was bought back by art thieves at the instigation of Serota.
Charles Thomson's cartoon about Serota's purchase decisions for the Tate Gallery

On November 21, 2000, Nicholas Serota gave the Richard Dimbleby Lecture entitled Who's Afraid of Modern Art in London.

“ For in spite of much greater public interest in all aspects of visual culture, including design and architecture, the challenge posed by contemporary art has not evaporated. We have only to recall the headlines for last year's Turner Prize. "Eminence without merit" (The Sunday Telegraph). "Tate trendies blow a raspberry" (Eastern Daily Press), and my favorite, "For 1,000 years art has been one of our great civilizing forces. Today, pickled sheep and soiled bed threaten to make barbarians of us all" (The Daily Mail ). Are these papers speaking the minds of their readers? I have no delusions. People may be attracted by the spectacle of new buildings, they may enjoy the social experience of visiting a museum, taking in the view, an espresso or glass of wine, purchasing a book or an artist designed t-shirt. Many are delighted to praise the museum, but remain deeply suspicious of the contents. "

- Nicholas Serota : Who's Afraid of Modern Art

In 1998, after the art theft from the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt , Serota came up with the so-called Operation Cobalt . This operation succeeded in recovering two Turner paintings that belonged to the Tate and that had been stolen four years earlier at an exhibition in Frankfurt. Since the insurance company had previously paid out the insured amount , the Tate was able to make £ 20 million profit. In 2001, the English painter Stuart Pearson Wright , winner of the prestigious BP Portrait Award that year, demanded that Serota be fired for his support for conceptual art and his neglect of figurative art. In 2012, the Irish journalist Ruth Dudley Edwards criticized Serota for abusing his power as the head of the Tate to promote talentless self-promotion and the multiplication of the ugly and senseless.

Since its inception in 1999, the group led Stuckists , which is committed to the return to painting, a campaign against Nicholas Setora. One of the group's best-known works is the satirical painting by co-founder Charles Thomson Sir Nicholas Serota Makes on Acquisitions Decision from 2000. In 2004 he was dubbed the "least likely visitor to The Stuckists Punk Victorian exhibition in the" Walker Art Gallery , which works who mocked him. In fact, Serota visited the exhibition, spoke to the artists and described the art on display as "alive".

In 2005, the Stuckists offered 160 paintings from this exhibition to the Tate Gallery as a donation. Serota refused and wrote to the stuccoists that their art did not have the "required quality in execution, innovation and originality of the ideas to ensure their permanent preservation in the national collection". He was then accused of having "treated the UK's leading collection with contempt". Because of this rejection, the Stuckists started a media campaign against the purchase of Tate's works by Chris Ofilis , member of the gallery's supervisory board.

Controversy

In 2005, Nicholas Serota admitted that he had misrepresented a letter of application to the National Art Collections Fund (NACF) for a £ 75,000 grant to purchase an Ofili artwork. He said the Tate had not yet decided to buy the artwork, despite the fact that the find had paid out £ 250,000 months earlier. He attributed his wrong information to a "mistake in reasoning". The NACF agreed that Serota could keep the money.

The following year, the Charity Commission ruled that the Tate had broken the charity law (but not the criminal law) in purchasing artwork made by the gallery's curators, including purchases made prior to Serota's tenure. The Daily Telegraph called this verdict "one of the most serious charges against the operation of one of the country's most important cultural institutions in memory". In April 2008, Charles Thomson launched a petition against the Serotas Tate dictatorship on the Prime Minister's website.

Personal

Nicholas Serota's first wife was the ballet dancer Angela Beveridge , who later married Alexander Bernstein, Baron Bernstein of Craigweil . The couple married in 1973 and have two daughters. In 1997 Serota married his second wife, Teresa.

Honors

In 2013 Serota was appointed a member of the 65-person Order of the Companions of Honor . In 2016 he was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

Publications (selection)

  • Looking at Modern Art: In Memory of David Sylvester . Tate Publishing 2002
  • with Jürgen Blasius: Donald Judd: The work . Dumont Book Publishing 2004
  • Unfolding Gift: The Pier Arts Center Collection . Thames & Hudson 2010
  • Gerhard Richter: Panorama . Tate Publishing 2011
  • with Morris Frances: Tate Modern the Handbook: Revised Edition . Tate Gallery Publishing 2011
  • with Deyan Sudjic: From the House to the City: Rogers Stirk Harbor + Partners . Goodman Books 2013
  • with Gabriella Belli / Anthony Caro: Anthony Caro . Skira 2013

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Sir Nicholas Andrew Serota on thepeerage.com , accessed August 17, 2015.
  2. ↑ Frances Spalding: The Tate: A History , pp. 150-151. Tate Gallery Publishing, London 1998. ISBN 1-85437-231-9 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e Frances Spalding: The Tate: A History , pp. 245-252. Tate Gallery Publishing, London 1998. ISBN 1-85437-231-9 .
  4. ^ "Major leads honors list for peace" BBC, December 31, 1998. Retrieved April 14, 2007
  5. ↑ London Gazette v. December 30, 1998 and v. September 14, 1999
  6. ^ Translation: " Nicholas Serato has tremendous energy and showed a great sense of diplomacy in the Whitechapel. He is a passionate man and his commitment to modern painting and sculpture is indeed unusual in this country. "
  7. ^ "The Dimbleby lecture 2000: Who's Afraid of Modern Art" ( Memento of March 6, 2001 in the Internet Archive ), BBC , March 6, 2001. Retrieved July 8, 2008
  8. ↑ Translation: Despite the greater public interest in all forms of visual culture, including design and architecture, the questioning of contemporary art has not evaporated. We just have to recall a few headlines: Tate trends are ridiculous (Eastern Daily Press), or my favorite: For 1000 years, art has been one of our greatest civilizing forces. Today decapitated sheep and earth beds make us all barbarians (The Daily Mail). Do these newspapers say what people think? I don't want to be deceived. People may be drawn to the spectacle of new buildings, they may enjoy the social experience of visiting a museum, looking at everything, having an espresso or a glass of wine, buying a book or a T-shirt designed by an artist. Many are impressed and praise the museum, but are deeply suspicious of the content.
  9. ↑ "Winning artist slams Tate director" , BBC , 20 June 2001. Retrieved 8 July, 2008.
  10. ↑ Ruth Dudley Edwards: As prices for Damien Hirst's works plummet, pity the credulous saps who spent fortunes on his tosh on dailymail.co.uk v. November 28, 2012 . Retrieved November 28, 2012
  11. ^ Sarah Cassidy: "Stuckists, scourge of BritArt, put on their own exhibition" , The Independent v. August 23, 2006. Retrieved July 6, 2008.
  12. ↑ Charlotte Cripps: "Visual arts: Saying knickers to Sir Nicholas , The Independent of September 7, 2004. Retrieved from findarticles.com of April 7, 2008.
  13. ↑ Michael Wright: "Culture: Agenda" , The Sunday Times v. January 18, 2004. Retrieved July 7, 2008
  14. ^ John Russell Taylor: "Lord have Mersey" , The Times v. September 29, 2004. Retrieved March 22, 2008
  15. ↑ Simon Pia, Simon: "Simon Pia's Diary: Now the Stuckists are on the move", The Scotsman . S. 22. 22 September 2004. Retrieved from newsuk v. March 15, 2008
  16. ↑ a b Dalya Alberge: "Tate rejects £ 500,000 gift from 'unoriginal' Stuckists" , The Times v. July 28, 2005. Retrieved February 1, 2008
  17. ^ "How Aging Art Punks Got Stuck into Tate's Serota". The Observer v. December 11, 2005. Retrieved February 1, 2008
  18. ^ "Tate Broke Own Rules on Ofili Buy". The Sunday Telegraph v. December 18, 2006 . Retrieved March 23, 2006
  19. ^ A b Nigel Reynolds: "Tate broke charity laws by buying art from its trustees" , The Daily Telegraph v. July 21, 2006. Retrieved April 22, 2008
  20. ^ Charlotte Higgins: "How the Tate broke the law in buying a £ 600,000 Ofili work" , The Guardian v. July 19, 2006. Retrieved February 1, 2008
  21. ↑ Oliver Duff: "Blades out for Serota in petition to No 10" , The Independent v. April 24, 2008. Retrieved May 3, 2008
  22. ^ American Academy of Arts and Sciences : Newly Elected Fellows. In: amacad.org. Retrieved April 22, 2016 .

Web links

Commons : Nicholas Serota  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Nicholas Serota  - Quotes
personal data
SURNAME Serota, Nicholas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Serota, Nicholas Andrew Sir
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British art historian and museum director
DATE OF BIRTH April 27, 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH London