LONDON.- Tate Modern today announced the first artist to undertake the Infinities Commission, a new annual commission to showcase the limitless experimentation of contemporary art. Each year, an expert panel will be asked to select an innovative and boundary-breaking international artist to create a visionary new work for the Tanks, Tate Modern’s unique spaces dedicated to performance, installation and film. This year’s jury has selected French artist Christelle Oyiri, whose commission will be unveiled in April 2025.
Christelle Oyiri is an artist, DJ and producer based in Paris. She works across multiple disciplines – from music and film to performance and installation – often exploring under-the-surface stories about contemporary culture, media and identity. Oyiri has described her work as focusing on ‘the things that lie between the lines’, including lost mythologies, youth subcultures, and diasporic histories. She has staged installations, performances and events around the world, including at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Haus der Kunst in Munich, Tramway in Glasgow and the Serpentine Gallery in London, as well as working as a DJ under the pseudonym Crystallmess.
Catherine Wood, Director of Programmes, Tate Modern, said “We are thrilled with the selection of Christelle Oyiri for our very first Infinities Commission. She disrupts the boundaries between creative disciplines and tunes our attention to the world around us with fresh vision. Alongside projects like Oscar Murillo’s Flooded Garden for Uniqlo Tate Play, Mire Lee’s upcoming Hyundai Commission, and Shu Lea Cheang’s Hagay Dreaming, this new commission reflects the evolving nature of Tate Modern as a living museum, with expanded programmes that invite our audiences into the worlds of today’s most interesting and imaginative artists.”
This year’s selection panel included musician and artist Brian Eno; critic and curator Oulimata Gueye; artist Anne Imhof; Artistic Director of Haus der Kunst in Munich, Andrea Lissoni; and Executive Director and Chief Curator of The Kitchen in New York, Legacy Russell.
As well as selecting the artist for the Infinities Commission, each year’s panel chooses three other artists to receive £10,000 of research and development funding to support the advancement of their work. This year’s panel has selected…
• Rashida Bumbray, an artist, curator and choreographer based in Baltimore whose performances draw on African American vernacular and folk forms.
• Jean Katambayi Mukendi, an artist from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who scrutinises society with a practice exploring mathematics, geometry and electricity through fragile and complex installations.
• Xenobia Bailey, an artist, designer and evolutionary-cultural activist working primarily in fibre and textile, who creates work which combines ancient and Afrofuturist aesthetics.
