Tate Modern’s new exhibition is an ambitious attempt to explore the relationship between the visual art mediums
There is “a lot going on” in Tate Modern’s new exhibition, said Laura Freeman in The Times. Subtitled “A journey through painting and photography”, the show is a huge and ambitious attempt to explore the relationship between painting and photography from the early 20th century to the present day, examining how a diverse range of artists have sought to capture “a fleeting moment with the click of a shutter or the flick of a brush”. It features “painting from photographs and photographs of paintings, photographs collaged on to paintings and photographs that are as staged as paintings”. Yet while it poses some “interesting questions” and includes a number of “fabulous pictures” by the likes of Lucian Freud, Andy Warhol and Gerhard Richter, it also features a lot of “second-rate” works and offers scant analysis. Ultimately, “it’s diffuse, it’s difficult and it doesn’t really hang together”.
