Tate tries to turn an advertising campaign into a Cultural Event

Tate Modern has announced an advertising campaign, and that is a very odd thing to announce.

Spitalfields – Image courtesy Tate and Jack Arts (part of BUILDHOLLYWOOD)

It’s not that advertising campaigns are never announced, but when they are, it’s usually in advertising trade magazines, and generally by the agency that did the work. The client doesn’t normally issue a press release that essentially says, “We are putting up some posters.”

Yet that is exactly what the Tate has done, issuing a general announcement that it will run an advertising campaign for its upcoming Tracey Emin exhibition.

That would be strange enough on its own, but the Tate has chosen to describe this as a “free, pop-up campaign”, a phrase that implies there is a paid, ticketed version of advertising somewhere that we’ve all been foolishly missing.

The adverts themselves are entirely standard for an art exhibition: a work by the artist, the exhibition title, and the name of the gallery. In this case, Tracey Emin at Tate, illustrated with one of her recent neon pieces. Perfectly fine. Entirely normal. Exactly what you’d expect an advert to look like.

What the Tate is trying to sell here is the idea that this isn’t really advertising at all, but a celebration — a generous act of placing art into public space. This is being framed as something closer to a cultural gift than a marketing exercise. They even roped in the Deputy Mayor for Culture to say something nice about it.

But honestly, it’s an advert.

That’s not a criticism of advertising exhibitions with images of the art. One of the pleasures of living in a city dense with galleries is that, because they want to sell tickets, they plaster the place with art. Walk down a street or sit on public transport and you’ll regularly find yourself face-to-face with a famous painting, a photo of a sculpture, or something genuinely interesting. Yes, it’s promoting an exhibition, but it also brightens the urban landscape and is vastly preferable to yet another poster for margarine or car insurance.

For a few weeks, you’ll be able to see Tracey Emin’s work on posters around London, advertising her exhibition at the Tate Modern. That’s nice. That’s normal. That’s how exhibitions work.

Why the Tate felt the need to make such a song and dance about it, however, remains a mystery.