The Art Explora Mobile Museum is touring artworks from the Tate exhibition Radical Landscapes around the Liverpool City Region in Spring 2023.
On this 10-week tour, the Mobile Museum will visit locations in Wirral, St Helens, Knowsley, Sefton, Halton and Liverpool.
This is the first time that Tate has toured works from the national collection directly to communities, and the first time the MuMo (Musée Mobile or Mobile Museum) has been to the UK.
The MuMo was founded in France in 2011 by Ingrid Brochard to make modern and contemporary art accessible to those who do not typically have access to it.
The exhibition on board the Art Explora Mobile Museum includes a selection of works from Radical Landscapes, which was first shown at Tate Liverpool in Summer 2022.
Landscape painting from the 19th century often seems to represent an idealised past, however landscape paintings were considered radical in their time due to their inclusion of scenes from ordinary rural life. Landscape painters were also among the first to document the emerging signs of the Industrial Revolution including factories, smoking chimneys and railways.
From the 1930s artists showed a renewed fascination in Britain’s ancient past, from Stonehenge to the mysterious shapes of megalithic remains in Cornwall. For these artists, landscapes inspired radical new art forms, such as the development of abstract art and Surrealism.
Post-war immigration to Britain led to a new generation of artists questioning their lack of representation in the tradition of British landscape art. Belonging to a place, or a community — or being excluded from — are themes addressed by several artists in this exhibition.
The land has always inspired activism — to protect it and our rights to it. Many artists have taken up their creative tools in opposition to land being used for military purposes, or harmed by urbanisation, industrialisation, and other major building projects. Today all landscapes are under threat from climate change, inspiring a new generation of artists and social activists.
To find out more about the UK tour email mumouk@artexplora.org
Image credit: Fanny Trichet
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