Liu Ding, Beijing-based artist and curator, will invite friends and colleagues to a party with a DJ mixing Baroque music and Chinese voices; 2-D reproductions of Tate artworks; and a spinning disco ball for a new work made for the BMW Tate Live Performance Room. “Almost Avant-Garde” was created especially for an online audience and will be performed live on 16 May. Everyone is invited to enter the online BMW Tate Live Performance Room via www.youtube.com/user/tate/tatelive.

The recorded voices are taken from interviews Liu Ding conducted with Chinese artists and art critics active in the 1990s in which they describe their work, experiences, expectations and understanding of art. Liu Ding uses the work to reflect on the Chinese art community’s aspirations to be modern and contemporary. Translations will be projected onto the walls of the Performance Room.

This innovative format offers international audiences an opportunity to experience entirely new live works at Tate and to join a discussion about the work online. Each performance is archived and available to view online after the live event. Previous artists in the series are Jér?me Bel, Pablo Bronstein, Emily Roysdon, Joan Jonas and Harrell Fletcher.

BMW Tate Live is a four-year partnership between BMW and Tate, which focuses on performance, interdisciplinary art and curating digital space. Now in its second year, new commissions for 2013 include those online for BMW Tate Live: Performance Room and live performances at Tate Modern for BMW Tate Live: Performance Events.

BMW Tate Live is curated by Catherine Wood, Curator, Contemporary Art and Performance, Tate and Capucine Perrot, Assistant Curator, Tate Modern.

Media Information

Date: April 15, 2013

Subject: BMW Tate Live Performance Room: Liu Ding “Almost Avant-Garde”

BMW Tate Live Performance Room

Audiences are invited to enter the online BMW Tate Live Performance Room via www.youtube.com/user/tate/tatelive at 20.00 hrs in the UK and exactly the same moment across time zones on the specified dates - 15.00 hrs on the East Coast of America, 21.00 hrs in mainline Europe and 23.00 hrs in Russia. The global audience is encouraged to chat with other viewers via social media channels during the performance and to put questions to the artist or curator following it using their Twitter, Facebook or Google+ accounts. To get the latest updates follow @TateLive, using #BMWTateLive; Tate Facebook or Tate Google+.

BMW Tate Live

BMW Tate Live is a four year partnership between BMW and Tate that features innovative live performances and events including live web broadcast, in-gallery performance, seminars and workshops. BMW Tate Live aims to reach an international audience through new forms of art,addressing audiences changing needs, tastes and interests in art. The initiative creates a new space for collaboration and a programme that encompasses performance, film, sound, installation and learning–areas where artists can take greater risks and experiment freely. The programme investigates transformation in all its guises and aims to provoke debate on how art can affect intellectual, social and physical change. More information at www.tate.org.uk/bmwtatelive.

BMW’s Cultural Commitment

For over 40 years now, the BMW Group has initiated and engaged in more than 100 cultural partnerships worldwide. The focus of this long-term commitment to culture is modern and contemporary art, jazz and classical music as well as architecture and design. BMW has worked with artists such as Gerhard Richter, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Olafur Eliasson, Jeff Koons, Zubin Metha, Daniel Barenboim and Anna Netrebko and commissioned architects such as Karl Schwanzer, Zaha Hadid and Coop Himmelb(l)au. In London, BMW in partnership with the London Symphony Orchestra, hosts the BMW LSO Open Air Classics, a yearly live concert free of charge in Trafalgar Square, and supports Frieze Art Fair. The BMW Group takes absolute creative freedom in all the cultural activities it is involved in for granted – as this is just as essential for groundbreaking artistic work as it is for major innovations in a successful business. www.bmwgroup.com/culture and www.bmwgroup.com/culture/overview

For questions please contact:

Dr. Thomas Girst

BMW Group Corporate and Intergovernmental Affairs

Head of Cultural Engagement

Telephone: +49 89-382-24753, Fax: +49 89-382-10881

Jeanette Ward

Senior Press Officer, Tate

Telephone: +44 (0)20 7887 4942, E-mail: pressoffice@tate.org.uk