Hyundai in Tate Modern sponsor deal

Tate Modern has announced a multimillion-pound deal with Korean car giant Hyundai to sponsor its landmark Turbine Hall commissions.

The 11-year agreement will run until 2025 and pay for works that go on show in what Tate director Sir Nicholas Serota described as the gallery's "iconic space".

More than 60 million people visited the previous commissions, sponsored by Unilever, in the Turbine Hall, which included Olafur Eliasson's huge, yellow, artificial indoor sun and Chinese artist Ai Weiwei's Sunflower Seeds that saw millions of tiny porcelain seeds scattered across its floor.

Sir Nicholas said: "The commissions have been one of the highlights of Tate Modern over the last 15 years and we have stretched the range of work which we show within the Turbine Hall, both in terms of media but also, as you will have observed, in terms of the different parts of the world artists have been drawn from and this commission, the Hyundai commission, is one which we see as being very, very significant for Tate."

The commissions have been put on hold in recent years while the building, on the south bank of the River Thames in London, is extended, with new galleries being built connected by a bridge over the Turbine Hall.

The deal with Hyundai, which will see the first commission unveiled next year, has already funded the acquisition of nine works by South Korean video artist Nam June Paik, which will go show later this year.

Culture, Media and Sport Secretary Maria Miller welcomed the deal as "an important new partnership".

She said: "Private sector support for the arts is absolutely vital in terms of generating a sustainable mixed economy for our cultural organisations."