Installation image of Hew Locke’s The Procession, Duveen Commission, Tate Britain. Photo by Anna Arca.
Hales is delighted to announce Tate Britain has unveiled The Procession, a major commission by artist Hew Locke. This new work is the latest response to the unique architecture and context of the neo-classical Duveen Galleries at the heart of Tate Britain.
The Procession invites visitors to 'reflect on the cycles of history, and the ebb and flow of cultures, people and finance and power.' Tate Britain's founder was art lover and sugar refining magnate Henry Tate. In the installation Locke says he 'makes links with the historical after-effects of the sugar business, almost drawing out of the walls of the building,' also revisiting his artistic journey so far, including for example work with statues, share certificates, cardboard, rising sea levels, Carnival and the military.
Throughout, visitors will see figures who travel through space and time. Here, they carry historical and cultural baggage, from evidence of global financial and violent colonial control embellished on their clothes and banners, alongside powerful images of some of the disappearing colonial architecture of Locke's childhood in Guyana.
The installation takes inspiration from real events and histories but overall, the figures invite us to walk alongside them, into an enlarged vision of an imagined future.
Hew Locke
The Procession
Tate Britain
Millbank
London SW1P 4RG
23 March - 22 January 2023
For more information please visit the Tate website here.
