New exhibition exploring migration and maritime history opens at Tate Liverpool
Tate Liverpool is unveiling a new exhibition exploring the city's maritime history.
Hew Locke’s Armada 2019, is an immersive large-scale installation made up of a flotilla of model boats and rafts, as the centrepiece of a free collection display – Port and Migrations.
It is made up of an array of cargo ships, fishing boats, caravels and galleons from different historical periods and places.
Described by Locke as votive boats, Armada is based on models he had noticed in European churches and cathedrals, offered by worshippers giving thanks for survival at sea.
Suspended from the ceiling at shoulder height, each boat is made from, and embellished, with a variety of materials including nets and decorations, jewels, charms, military badges, and replica medals from areas as wide as the Caribbean and Syria.
Armada reflects on the long history of international trade and the movement of good and people as well as more contemporary themes such as the current global refugee crisis.
Helen Legg, Director, Tate Liverpool, added: “I’ve long admired the work of Hew Locke and I’m thrilled that we are able to make Armada a key work in Tate Liverpool’s new Port and Migrations display.
"I think it’s vital as a gallery that we consider the historic significance of our location in the city when choosing which artworks from the Tate collection to show.
"Hew’s work, and the others in this display, really reflect how the movement of people and ideas is central to Liverpool’s history and identity.
"By exploring works like these, and how they resonate with local and global history, we can consider the relationship between Liverpool and the world that it looks out on.”
Polly Staple, Director of the British Art Collection at the Tate said: “Hew Locke’s Armada is a wonderfully layered, visually engaging work – inviting you to explore complex histories.
"A major acquisition for Tate in 2019, Armada underscores our commitment to resituating British art and developing new understandings of the transnational histories of British culture."
Port and Migrations will also feature artists such as Sonia Boyce, Chen Zhen, Ellen Gallagher and Donald Rodney, whose Visceral Canker 1990 consists of wall plaques displaying two coats of arms, one symbolising Queen Elizabeth I, the other John Hawkins, the first British slave trader.
The plaques are linked via a system of tubes which circulate imitation blood, symbolising the movement of enslaved peoples and reflecting upon Britain’s colonial past.
A second display, Global Encounters, explores and rethinks how international exchange has enabled the spread of ideas and knowledge and contains Modernist art from around the world.