The Long Weekend

A spectacular celebration of activated and immersive installation, performance, cinema and sonic practice presented over five floors at Tate Modern.

From 2006-09, Tate Modern produced The Long Weekend, an annual spring festival captivating audiences for four days and four nights. The program included temporary and ephemeral public art, experimental film, music, dance, conceptual practice and participatory projects. Artworks were presented in the Turbine Hall, collection galleries and in unexpected, interstitial spaces. They spilt out onto the forecourt, traversed the river-side façade and paraded through the city.

The inaugural festival augmented Tate Modern’s 2006 collection re-hang by presenting and re-enacting historical works by artists active in Surrealism, Minimalism and Abstraction, as well as contemporary artists whose work aligns with those sensibilities. Subsequent festivals explored the Arte Povera, Neo-Concrete and Fluxus movements, as well as practices that place emphasis on process, the notion of life as art, and the repurposing of every-day materials.

Artists

Over four years, the festival presented more than 150 artists and performers from across Europe, Brazil, Japan, Thailand, Senegal, the USA and UK.

Program Details and Documentation

The Long Weekend 2006

DAYTIME PROGRAM

Trisha Brown, Man Walking Down the Side of a Building (1970), performed by Anthony Summers descending down the river-side façade of Tate Modern. Presented in conjunction with a screening of films capturing performances choreographed by Brown in the 1970s.

Surasi Kusolwong, One Pound Turbo Market (2006), transforming the Turbine Hall into a Thai street market accompanied by South-east Asian pop music and a durational MC performance by the artist.

Joan Miró and Joan Baixas, Mermer Never Dies (1978), a street parade culminating in a surreal melodrama involving grotesque, puppet-like characters designed and fabricated by the artists.
The work was restaged by the La Clara theatre troupe (2006) using the original costumes.

John Cage, Musiccircus (1967), orchestrated by Richard Bernas (2006), involving live re-enactments and remixes of original recordings by Cage.
Performed by: Robert Worby and Co., Kreutzer String Quartet, Linda Hirst, Scanner, Richard Benjafield, The Guildhall Percussion Ensemble, LKS Brass Ensemble and others.

Marina Rosenfeld, The Sheer Frost Orchestra (1993-2006), a wall of sound produced by an ensemble of women playing guitars with bottles of nail varnish.
Performed by Rachel Baker, Lali Chetwynde, Melanie Clifford, Lina Dzuverovic, Miranda Lossifidis, Katie Kitamura, Margarita Louca, Daria Martin, Dana Munro, Anne Hilde Neset, Mariko Otake, Charlotte Prodger, Irene Revell, Lisa Rosendahl, Dawn Scarfe, Ana Da Silva, Claire Singer and Lucy Walker.

EVENING PROGRAM

Ultra, an evening of AV performances by artists evolving the concept of Minimalism through the use of software and algorithmic techniques, including:
Ryoji Ikeada, datamatics: prototype (2006)
Alva Noto (aka Carsten Nicolai), xerrox (2006)
Monolake (aka Robert Henke) with Torsten T++ Pröfrock, Atlantic Waves IV (2006)

Live performance by The Real Tuesday Weld in collaboration with David Piper and Cibelle, accompanying the surrealist film Dreams that Money can Buy (1947) by Hans Richter.

Live performance by the Courtney Pine Jazz Ensemble, accompanying the film Borderline (1930) by Kennith Macpherson.

DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid (aka Paul D. Miller) accompanying the film Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927) by Walter Ruttmann.

The Long Weekend 2007

DAYTIME PROGRAM

Mathieu Briand, Spiral (2002-07), an installation made out of custom-built road cases and record decks activated with live electronic music, MC and DJ sets by:
The Bug, Spaceape, Radio Active Man, SI-CUT.DB, Johnny Head-In-Air (Sarah Washington), Xentos ‘Fray’ Bentos (Jim Whelton), Charlie Dark and Mathieu Briand.

Re-staging of the performance Parangolés (1964-68) by Hélio Oiticica, involving participants adorned in colourful costumes dancing to live Samba rhythms throughout Tate Modern.
This was accompanied by a schedule of free Samba classes taking place within the collection galleries.

Participatory performance by Prue Lang, Did You Ever Want to be Someone Else? (2007), involving 100 participants strolling amidst the crowds at Tate Modern, all wearing exactly the same prosthetic face mask, and periodically executing a sequence of unexpected gestures.

A commissioned, participatory installation by Marepe, Veja meu Bem (2007), staging a carnival-like carousel adorned with found materials from the streets of Brazil and a truck load of toffee apples.

EVENING PROGRAM

A rare live performance by Throbbing Gristle, accompanying a selection of super-8 films produced in the 1970s by Derek Jarman.

An overnight screening of Andy Warhol’s film Sleep (1964), accompanied by a tag team of pianists including Michael Nyman, John Giorno, Gavin Bryars and others, performing the 18hr epic, Vexations (1949) by Erik Satie.

Live performance of a newly commissioned composition by Ikue Mori, accompanying a selection of surrealist films by Maya Derren (2007).

Synthesis, An evening of AV performances by artists combining the use of analogue and self-built, electronic instruments, including:
Ryoichi Kurokawa, cm: av_c (2007)
Toshimaru Nakamura with Billy Roisz (aka AVVA), improvised AV performance (2007)
Sachiko M with Benjamin Drew, improvised AV performance (2007).

The Long Weekend 2008

DAYTIME PROGRAM

George Maciunas, Flux-Olympiad (1960), including participatory games such as Vegetable Chess, The 200m Ballon Dash, Slow Bicycle Race, Stilt Soccer, Prepared Ping-pong and others.
Directed by Larry Miller and Tom Russotti with support from Sara Seagull and Simon Anderson (2008).

LaMonte Young, Draw a Straight Line and Follow It (1960), a Fluxus score performed in various iterations by:
Yairy Baghramian, Luke Fowler and Lee Paterson, Judith Hopf, Melvin Moti, Bojan Sarcavic, Jan Timme and Richard Wright.

Three performances by Alison Knowles, recreating some of her seminal early work, including:
Proposition No. 1: Make a Salad (1962), Shuffle (1961) and Newspaper Music (1962).

Re-enactments of happenings by Allan Kaprow, including:
Fluids (1967), involving a team of participants in high-vis jackets stacking blocks of ice into a geometric formation on the forecourt in front of Tate Modern.
Scales (1967), involving participants repetitively placing and removing cement blocks on various stairwells throughout Tate Modern.

Gustav Metzger, Festival of the Missed Fits (1962/2008), a durational performance and accumulative installation originally conceptualised and prepared for a Fluxus event in 1962.

Re-enacted Fluxus performances, including:
George Maciunas, 12 Piano Compositions for Nam June Paik (1962)
George Brecht, String Quartet (1962), Symphony No. 3 Fluxversion 1: On the floor (1964), Piano Piece (1962) and Instruction (1961)
Yoko Ono, Sky Piece for Jesus Christ (1965)
Ben Vautier, Look (1964)
Takehisa Kosugi, Anima (1964)
Phillip Corner, Piano Activities (1961)
Mieko Shiomi, Boundary Music (1963), Wind Music Fluxversion 1 and 11 (1963)
Yasunao Tone, Anagram for Strings (1961) and Piano Piece for 16 Fingers (1973)
Larry Miller, Chewed Drawing (1968)
Eric Anderson, Opus 1001 (1961) and Opus 1234 (1962)
Directed by Larry Miller and Tom Russotti with support from Sara Seagull and Simon Anderson.

Fluxus Multiples, archival display, various artists, 1960-65.

Street Art executed on epic scale across the river-side façade of Tate Modern, including work by:
Blu, JR, Sixeart, Nunca, Os Gemeos and the artist collective Faile.

EVENING PROGRAM

Past Potential Futures, a screening of early experiments in computer animation from the 60s and 70s, including:
John Stehura, Cybernetik 5.3 (1965-69)
Denys Irving, 69 (1969)
Stan VanDerBeek and Kenneth Knowlton, Poemfield #2 (1966)
Pierre Hêbert, Around Perception (1968)
Malcolm Le Grice, Threshold (1972)
Lillian Schwartz and Kennith Knowlton, Googolplex (1972)
Ed Ermshwiller, Sunstone (1979)
Larry Cuba, Two Space (1979)

Rita Ray DJ set, accompanying the films Badou Boy (1970) and Contras’ City (1968) by Djibril Diop Mambéty.

The Long Weekend 2009

DAYTIME PROGRAM

Recreation of the participatory installation Bodyspacemotionthings by Robert Morris (1971/2009), involving giant geometric structures designed for audiences to climb, slide and balance on.

Paola Pivi performance commission, 1000 (2009), involving 1,000 volunteers recruited from across the country performing a simultaneous scream, held for the longest possible duration.

Re-enacted Arte Povera performances:
Michelangelo Pistoletto, Newspaper Sphere (1966/2009), inviting the public to participate in rolling a giant ball of newspaper from Tate Modern to St Paul’s Cathedral.
Janis Kounellis, Untitled (1971), a composition for solo cello, performed intermittently along side a painting by the artist on display in the Arte Povera collection gallery.

A looped sequence of sound art compositions by Lugio Nono embedded under the floorboards in the Arte Povera collection display, periodically accompanied by a live soprano vocalist, including:
Omaggio A Emilio Vedova (1960)
La fabbrica illuminata (1964)
Ricorda Cosa Ti Hanno Fatto in Auschwitz (1965)
Contrappunto Dialettico Alla Mente (1968)

Daily screenings of experimental, Italian cinema from the Arte Povera era, including films by: Alighiero e Boetti, Luigi Ontani, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Frederico Fellini.

EVENING PROGRAM

Cyprien Gaillard, Desniansky Raion (2006), an epic, cinematic triptych accompanied by a live version of the the film’s soundtrack composed and performed by Koudlam.

Bruce Conner, Easter Morning (2008), screened with members of the London Symphony Orchestra performing a live rendition of the film’s soundtrack, In C (1964) by Terry Riley.

Jennifer West, Skate the Sky Melon Grab Film (2009), produced on site at Tate Modern via a day-time performance involving strips of film, ink and a team of skateboarders.