This weekend (9-12 May), Tate Modern hosts a celebratory ‘birthday weekender’ to mark 25 years of the London institution, which opened at the turn of the millennium after a nearly six-year conversion of the former Bankside Power Station, which was inaugurated in the early 1960s and closed in 1982 after surging oil prices.
Over the quarter decade since, it has become a site of numerous blockbuster exhibitions and installations, not least in the vast turbine hall which has been transformed by the works of Carsten Höller (looping stories-high slides), Louise Bourgeois (towering metal spiders) and Ai Weiwei (hundreds of thousands of porcelain sunflower seeds), among others. The time has also seen various expansions and renovations, including the subterranean ‘Tanks’ (2012) and the towering Blavatnik Building (2016), both designed by Swiss studio Herzog & de Meuron.
25 years of Tate Modern: Uniqlo opens its take on the gift shop
(Image credit: Uniqlo)
Amid the various celebrations taking place over the weekend – which span an eclectic programme, from tarot readings to performance art, talks and DJ sets – is the opening of a playful take on the museum gift shop by Japanese clothing brand Uniqlo, a longtime sponsor of Tate Modern’s various events, including ‘Tate Lates’ which ran from 2016-2020.
Located on the riverside ground floor, ‘Uniqlo Tate Shop, Art For All’ – named after Uniqlo’s ongoing support programme for various art institutions, including MoMA, the Louvre and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts – will feature a typically colourful array of Uniqlo staples, displayed on curving fixtures in the brand’s signature signal-red hue (at 100 sq m, think of it as a Uniqlo store in miniature).
The store will also feature a range of T-shirts featuring an era-spanning collection of art works from the Tate’s collection – a playful take on gift shop ‘merch’ – including a 1979 self-portrait by Andy Warhol, Guerrilla Girls’ 1986 ‘Dearest Art Collector’ and a Peter Saville illustration of Tate Modern, alongside works by Louise Bourgeois, Salvador Dalí, Ayoung Kim and Ibrahim El-Salahi, among others.
(Image credit: Uniqlo)
But Uniqlo also designates the store as a place of ‘play’: customisation stations will allow garments to be personalised with embroidered motifs, while a series of workshops will unfold over the weekend and across the month. ‘Tate Modern’s birthday isn’t just a moment to reflect on 25 years at the cutting edge,’ says Karin Hindsbo, director of Tate Modern. ‘It’s a chance to keep pushing artistic boundaries and to give a platform to the next generation.’
‘Our birthday weekend will be a truly public celebration of art and creativity to which everyone is invited,’ she continues. ‘We are incredibly grateful to our longstanding partner, Uniqlo, for their support of the Birthday Weekender, reflecting our shared values and belief that art is for everyone.’
‘Uniqlo Tate Shop, Art For All’ is open now until 16 September, 2025. Tate’s ‘Birthday Weekender’ programme can be viewed here.
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