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Underground > Art, Fashion & Design >

Tate Modern

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21:24 / 27.10.05

Went along today, in high spirits, to suss out the Whiteread work. wtf? I felt nothing. I wanted to. I wondered throughout as I wandered through it what I should be getting from the piece that I wasn't but eventually I decided whatever it was was going to be perpetually beyond my aesthetic grasp. Not sure if it's a poor idea, well executed, or a great idea, poorly executed.

Thjey are fixed in place. Glued. Looks like some white boxes have been stolen or have dropped off, judging from the lumps of glue visible here and there.

It works better when you look down on it from the Mezzanine but, even then, *yawn*

22:33 / 27.10.05

But! Douanier Rousseau exhibiton coming up next month. Yay!

07:36 / 28.10.05

I have to say, Tate Modern is probably my favoritest art museum in the whole world, at least as far as I've seen so far.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

18:24 / 30.10.05

Mind you, what about this whole thing involving the Tate paying for Chris Ofili's paintings eh? Conflict of interest?

18:12 / 31.10.05

Sure sounds like it. Was Ofili buying a very expensive bride off the internet or summat?

Our Lady Has Left the Building

16:45 / 03.12.05

Slightly off-topica as the exhibition is up the road at Tate Britain but I did like it. The specially designed room does succeed in cutting you off from the rest of the building and making things appropriately chappel-like. Not quite sure what the lumps of elephant shit really add to the pictures though, did he order too much when he was doing those Madonna and Child pictures a few years back so now he was desperate to shift them before he got married?

19:57 / 23.12.05

I love the Tate Modern.

Recently went to see the Jeff Wall photography exhibit there which was fun.

I also enjoyed walking about all the white boxes downstairs and sneaking in to the bits right at the edge at the wall so you are all alone.

09:15 / 30.12.05

"Went along today, in high spirits, to suss out the Whiteread work. wtf? I felt nothing."

Xoc, dude. That's because you weren't running around with a friend's 4 year old, pretending to be arctic foxes and almost getting hassled by security guards. the tate modern is great for kids...

21:19 / 01.01.06

Yeah what is it with the guards in that place. This isn't prison! I can't help it if I am popular and people phone me in art galleries.

12:51 / 06.02.06

I went last week to see the Rousseau exhibition before it ended, and found to my great joy that they are at last shuffling their collection around, dusting off other works and making new juxtapositions between those remaining on show-- now it is Anish Kapoor and Barnett Newman instead of Giacometti and the latter, for instance.

I was also hugely disappointed to find that I actually liked the Whiteread installation, against what I thought would be my better judgement-- it is fun and impressive and Romantic in the way that a weird interior landscape has been constructed out of overblown Lego. If art is meant to make people feel something, then wandering around dwarfed by huge white plastic mountains certainly must count...

I am very excited to find that the Tate from May will be a new experience-- keep us on our toes and even, perhaps, educating ourselves... My only problem with the industrial space is that every installation (not including the Turbine Hall) or exhibition somehow comes to resemble an end of year show from an art school.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

09:56 / 22.10.07

Anyone up for the crack? (In the floor of the Turbine Hall)

10:17 / 22.10.07

I saw it the day before the first few ninnies tumbled into the blasted thing. It's actually rather marvellous - impressive on a sheer how *did* they do that level.

Also, the Louise Bourgeois exhibition is a gem: Tate have upped their game considerably. V. looking forward to next year's Rothko and Bacon retrospectives.

Tryphena Absent

10:53 / 23.10.07

Have they cordoned it off or something?

Tryphena Absent

10:54 / 23.10.07

Incidentally Doris Salcedo is my favourite artist and I am sickeningly excited by this, I haven't visited yet because I can't bear to go when there are lots of people about.

13:13 / 23.10.07

Go on a Friday, Nina. It’s open until 10 and it tends to be quietest then.
However, like most of the installations in the Turbine Hall, I think Shibboleth benefits from being populated. People cleave to the crack and it feels more ‘seismic’ the more people there are. I don’t think it particularly rewards an uncluttered view – and in fact it’s impossible to see the whole thing at once whether or not there are people there.

I’ve been to see it quite a few times and I’m still struck by how dangerous it is. No, it’s not cordoned off and if you wanted to design a large-scale, wide-radius ankle-twister this would pretty much be it. I can’t quite believe it passed a Health & Safety inspection or that there isn’t a prohibitive insurance liability. I’m pleased it has though because I think it’s great.

Because it rips through an established surface (rather than through a medium that had been brought into the space) it has an odd quality of being there and not being there at the same time; if you see what I mean. Something both installed and revealed. Similarly, it feels both passive and aggressive, natural and artificial, thrusting but also enveloping…
I also like that fact that the Turbine Hall will surely bear a scar from it forever.

12:38 / 24.10.07

Incase anyone missed my post in the Podcasting thread, there's a nice little RSS feed for Tate Shots which releases 4 or 5 free video interviews every month. Issue 8 included an interview with Doris Salcedo.

Also, thanks for the heads up on the Louise Bourgeois exhibition, Mick. I might try and pop along this weekend.

Tryphena Absent

14:07 / 27.10.07

The crack v. good but the Louise Bourgeois exhibition... for me an edge of damage ran through the whole thing but about 2/3 of the way through I felt like someone had hit me in the face with a frying pan. The curator really got it spot on. Go and see it if you want to see art that is just... oh god, I honestly don't have a word. Some of those cells gave me goose pimples.

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