Hyundai Motor and Tate announce Cecilia Vicuña as the next Hyundai Commission Artist

• Hyundai Commission, a key part of the unique partnership between Hyundai Motor and Tate, to unveil a new site-specific work by Cecilia Vicuña in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall this October
• Vicuña, known for the way she explores pressing concerns about ecology, community and social justice, to create the next Hyundai Commission

Hyundai Motor Company and Tate Modern today announced that Chilean artist and poet Cecilia Vicuña will create the next Hyundai Commission for Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall. Hyundai Commission: Cecilia Vicuña will open to the public from October 13, 2022 to April 16, 2023.

The annual Hyundai Commission offers artists an opportunity to create new work for Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, a space that has hosted some of the world’s most memorable and acclaimed works of contemporary art. This year’s Hyundai Commission by Cecilia Vicuña will be the seventh in this series of extraordinary works.

Cecilia Vicuña (b.1948) is perhaps best known for her radical textile sculptures, combining natural materials and traditional crafts. A prolific multi-disciplinary artist, Vicuña explores the pressing concerns of ecology, community, and social justice. Born and raised in Santiago, Vicuña went into exile during the early 1970s after the violent military coup against former Chilean President Salvador Allende. This sense of impermanence, and a desire to preserve and pay tribute to the country’s indigenous history and culture have characterized her career, spanning half a century.

Vicuña’s ephemeral and environmentally conscious work combines the tactile ritual of weaving with assemblage, poetry, performance, and painting. Her creations include the ongoing series Precarios, tiny sculptures combining feathers, stone, plastic, wood, wire, shells, cloth and other human-made detritus, and Quipus, hanging textile installations which draw on an ancient Andean method of communication through knotting-colored strings.

The Hyundai Commissions made possible by the long-term partnership between Hyundai Motor and Tate are confirmed through 2026 as part of the longest initial commitment from a corporate partner in Tate’s history. In addition to the Hyundai Commission, Hyundai Motor supports the Hyundai Tate Research Centre: Transnational. Launched in January 2019, the center is transforming how Tate shares new perspectives on global art histories with individuals and organizations around the world.

Hyundai Motor’s commitment to supporting art and its global communities has led to long-term partnerships with museums and organizations. The aim is to encourage new ways of thinking about art and the values and connections it can create by supporting initiatives where artists, communities, and institutions come together to offer transformative experiences. Hyundai Motor has supported art initiatives through long-term partnerships with global museums, such as Tate, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA), and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) since 2013.

Hyundai Commission: Cecilia Vicuña will be curated by Catherine Wood, Senior Curator of International Art (Performance), Tate with Fiontan Moran, Assistant Curator, International Art, Tate. It will be accompanied by a new book from Tate Publishing.

About Cecilia Vicuña

Vicuña’s art has been acquired and exhibited at museums and galleries around the world, including retrospectives at Ex Witte de With/ Kunstinstituut Melly in Rotterdam; Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC) in Mexico City and CA2M, Madrid, as well as exhibitions at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Santiago; and the Institute of Contemporary Arts and the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London. Vicuña received her M.F.A. from the National School of Fine Arts, University of Chile in 1971 and went on to study at Slade School of Fine Art, University College London from 1972–3. She has received several awards, including the Premio Velázquez de Artes Plásticas, Madrid, Spain (2019); Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, Santa Monica, CA (2019); Anonymous Was a Woman Award, New York, NY (1999); and The Andy Warhol Foundation Award, New York, NY (1997), and in 2015 was appointed the Messenger Lecturer at Cornell University. Vicuña is the author of 27 internationally published volumes of poetry and was a founding member of Artists for Democracy. She divides her time between Chile and New York.