A Bigger Splash: Painting after Performance Art at Tate Modern

Taking its cue (and title) from the iconic David Hockney painting of a dynamic splash emanating from an LA pool, A Bigger Splash: Painting after Performance Art, aims to take a reverse-engineered look at the dynamic relationship between performance and painting since 1950. The paintings of the Vienna Actionists or the Shooting Pictures of Niki de St Phalle are re-presented here, within the performance context in which they were made. Those works are juxtaposed with pieces by artists such as Cindy Sherman and Jack Smith, who used the face and body as a surface. Suggesting that early performance art influenced and altered the course of painting in the second half of the 20th century, the exhibition proposes a new way of looking at the work of a number of younger artists, whose approach to painting is energised by these diverse historical sources.