When London’s Tate Modern opened in 2000, the museum welcomed the public with Louise Bourgeois’s monumental spider steel and marble sculpture Maman (1999), which dominated the Turbine Hall The entrance then left a series of slender bronze replicas around the world including Ottawa, Tokyo, Bilbao and Kansas City. Now, the late French-American artist’s iconic spider will return to the site of its debut in 2025, drawing a new generation of visitors in her web to mark the Bankside arts institution’s 25th anniversary.
Conceived as an ode to the skilled, protective and nurturing presence of the bourgeois mother, Maman was commissioned for Tate Modern’s Unilever-sponsored annual sculpture series, which was later canceled and the museum acquired it in 2008 Official acquisition.
The work will be on view through May 9 during the institution’s anniversary weekend, kicking off an installation of 25 contemporary artworks around the building, including a large-scale work by Mark Rothko seagram mural (1958-59) and Dorothea Tanning’s early painting Night Music (1943).
The path will also showcase film, music and performance works, including a multi-screen film installation by Indian artist Nalini Malani and a series of live tarot card readings by Beninese conceptual artist Meschac Gaba.
As one of the UK’s most popular art venues, attendance at Tate Modern has been steadily increasing since the pandemic, when visitor numbers fell sharply. Last year, the museum welcomed more than 4.7 million visitors, still down from its peak attendance in 2019, when attendance exceeded 6 million. Tate Modern, along with Tate Britain, Tate St Ives and Tate Liverpool, is part of the network of museums that house the National Collection of modern and contemporary British art.
The museums most recently made headlines earlier this month when more than 100 protesters and 2024 Turner Prize winner Jasleen Kaur criticized the institution’s ties to Israeli military activity at this year’s ceremony Relationships with relevant organizations.
