On our seventh day across the pond, the group took a break from absorbing theatrical and architectural art (as well as some sculpture and mosaics inside of St. Paul’s Cathedral) to instead absorb some visual and sculptural art. To be specific, we made an early afternoon visit to the Tate Modern Museum, one of the largest galleries of modern art in the world. The building used to be a hydro-electric plant, aspects of which are still recognizable, such as the prominent chimney still attached to the top and the massive steel girders running up and across the walls in the main entry hall.
Shawn had pointed out the building sitting on the south side of the Thames River a number of times during previous excursions, but the size of it never registered in my head until I went inside. The ceiling was very high in the entry hall, and, given the number of galleries I never saw despite spending __ hours there, the square footage used to showcase both permanent and temporary exhibits is surely nothing to scoff at.
I got an excellent look at three displays: the Start Display, the In The Studio display, the Artist and Society display.
Funnily enough, because I walked into one room instead of the other after entering the first room (which showed a video that is part of the Start Display) I looked at the Start Display closer to the end of my tour, so its advisory plaques on ways to look at and think about art went largely unutilized! The pieces in it were interesting enough, most of them being explorations of color ranging from inventing new colors, like Yves Klein’s IKB 79,to reflecting on the historic usage of certain color, as is done in Maria Lalic’s History Painting series.
The In The Studio display consisted of twelve rooms that were divided by various themes; some were dedicated to specific artists, some were dedicated to specific artistic movements, and some were dedicated to specific time periods. But, as one may glean from the display’s title, the placards that accompanied these works gave a great amount of insight into the motivation and methods behind the pieces’ creation. Knowing the origins of the artworks helped me see deeper meaning in them, learn new methods of creating visual art that were previously unknown to me, understand the tenets and founding of movements of art (specifically monochrome with white and Surrealism), and, in the case of a few Cubist paintings, even enabled me to know what the painting was supposed to be of.
Among this display, I found what I believe to be my new favorite painting: Eluhim by Leonora Carrington, created in 1960. Inspired by the folktales told to her as a child, several of the figures in this painting are of a clearly supernatural nature, given the haloes and other symbols of light that rest above their heads as well as their massive wings. But their shapes are only suggestively humanoid; they exude a sense of danger, power, and otherworldliness that strikes me, especially in comparison to the normal animals that occupy the lower portion of the piece. This painting also captivates me because of all of the tiny detail work in it. So many of the brush strokes, from the rays of light coming off of the mysterious source in the center of the scene, to the individual whiskers of the lion’s mane, seem like they could only have been created by a single hair dipped in oil paint, and the level of control required to create that effect is jaw-dropping!
The Artist and Society display functioned as a combination history lesson and art observation to me. All sorts of events, from the Spanish Civil War, to the Nazi regime, to colonialism and its lasting influences in the Democratic Republic of Congo, are regaled and argued against in these artworks, and stand as strong evidence against those who would claim that art has no meaningful impact.
A part of me feels bad for not seeing more of what the Tate Modern has to offer. But my aching feet combined with the alarms set off by unaware tourists stepping over a gray “Do Not Cross” line on the floor that still pierced my ears from two rooms away overwrote my curiosity. But what I managed to see improved my artistic frame of mind, something that, as a theatre maker, will surely come in handy!
Also, an unfortunate update on the debit card situation: someone did manage to spend a good amount of money before I deactivated my card, so I will have to go through the process of disputing those charges as soon as possible. Wish me luck!
Theatre in London U of A 