Per Kirkeby

Starts on Wednesday 17th June 2009 and ends on Sunday 6th September 2009

One of the best known contemporary artists in Denmark, Per Kirkeby came to prominence in the 1980s. This exhibition at Tate Modern displays a variety of work spanning the artist's career which illustrate how difficult it is to define his work. Take, for example, his large-scale paintings, like the Seige of Constantinople (after Delacroix), which sit alongside lesser known 'blackboard' pieces and some previously unseen pop-inspired paintings from the sixties. One of his conceptual themes is to examine the Danish tradition of Huts which, in Kirkeby's hands, are given the 'pop' art treatment, with kitsch motifs of trees and rising suns. Referring to his wall sculptures, Kirkeby once described himself as a painter but "one who paints with bricks".

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Futurism

Starts on Friday 12th June 2009 and ends on Sunday 20th September 2009

Key artists of the Futurism Italian art movement which came to prominence before the First World War are brought together in this exhibition at Tate Modern. It was in 1909 that Italian writer Filippo Tommaso Marinetti launched his manifesto 'Founding and First Manifesto of Futurism' in Le Figaro, giving birth to the movement. Artists including Umberto Boccioni, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and Jacob Epstein responded by forging a new, modern art with hard lines and abstract edges. Their work was displayed at the group Futurist exhibition at the Galerie Bernheim in Paris in 1912 which then toured to major European cities including London. Though the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art has an excellent collection of their work, this is the first large-scale Futurism show in Britain for thirty years.

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Sold Out

Starts on Thursday 1st October 2009 and ends on Sunday 17th January 2010

Pop Art gets a radical re-sizing at Tate Modern with artists like be Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst re-examined. This exhibition takes the approach that these artists are all about the 'brand', using modern means of communication and commercialism to promote their trademark style. An interest in self-promotion and use of marketing strategies are aspects that all the artists, popular since the 1980s, have in common. The title of the exhibition is sure to raise some eyebrows and just goes to show the controversy such flagrantly commercial art stirs up.

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