LONDON.- Tate Modern is ten on 12 May 2010. Over 45 million visitors have passed through the gallery’s doors since it first opened to the public ten years ago. Tate Modern is the world’s most visited gallery of modern art and is one of the UK’s top three free tourist attractions. To celebrate its tenth anniversary, Tate Modern will stage a major free arts festival, No Soul For Sale – A Festival of Independents, in the Turbine Hall from 14-16 May 2010.

Tate Modern has been a catalyst both for the transformation of public attitudes to the visual arts in the UK and for the regeneration of north Southwark. It has become synonymous with groundbreaking artist projects, such as the celebrated Unilever Series, innovative Collection displays, a critically acclaimed exhibition programme and a highly renowned film and live performance programme.

For the tenth anniversary, Tate Modern will build on the participatory spirit of previous projects that celebrate the iconic Turbine Hall space, which is part gallery, part covered street, by inviting No Soul For Sale, the brainchild of artist Maurizio Cattelan and curators Cecilia Alemani and Massimiliano Gioni, to bring its anarchic, tongue-in-cheek sensibility to the Turbine Hall.

Tate Modern, working in collaboration with Cattelan, Alemani and Gioni, has invited 50 independent art spaces and collectives, from Shanghai to Prague, to create unique projects for this global arts festival. No Soul For Sale will fill the Turbine Hall for three days with an eclectic mix of cutting-edge arts events, performances, music and film. The gallery will stay open until midnight on Friday 14 and Saturday 15 May for late night events with special guests.

The idea for the festival was developed to foster a spirit of independence and diversity by inviting artist collectives and underground enterprises from across the world to take part. Confirmed participants for the Tate Modern festival include among others ArtHub (Shanghai), Artists Space (New York), e-flux (Berlin), PiST (Istanbul), Latitudes (Barcelona), no.w.here (London), Loop (Seoul), The Royal Standard (Liverpool), Tranzit (Prague), VIAFARINI (Milan), White Columns (New York), and Y3K (Melbourne).

On Tate Modern’s birthday there will be a special morning procession from Borough Market to the gallery of 300 local children, a band and cakes which are inspired by the building. Visitors will be invited to enjoy a slice of the birthday cakes on the day.

Tate is also asking the public for their memories of Tate Modern over the last ten years. These will be used in a film that will tell the public’s story about the gallery. These stories, pictures and film clips will be gathered via Tate’s online blog, the Tate Modern Flickr Group, Facebook, Twitter and on YouTube.

Over the last ten years, Tate Modern has presented 52 exhibitions, staged over 135 performances, held around 400 film screenings, mounted ten Unilever Commissions and hosted one million school visits. Almost 3.5 million people have taken part in the gallery’s learning programme. Tate Modern contributes over £100 million in economic benefits to London annually.

Tate is Transforming Tate Modern with a major building project to increase the gallery and learning spaces. This is essential development of the gallery which is visited each year by around 5 million people in a building that was designed for 2 million. Tate also needs more varied spaces to show the ever-growing Collection. There will be 60% more display space in the new Tate Modern.