So I had an hour to kill in a really dreary part of London. I wandered around for a while, looking for somewhere to grab a coffee and a newspaper but there really was nothing around. Eventually I stumbled across a depressing cafe situated at the bottom of a depressing tower block and got a coffee and a croissant.
I find these concrete and steel towers to be really depressing on a grey, drizzly day, yet they can look so beautiful against a blue sky with the sun glinting of the windows. With an hour killed I headed back to the Tate and went inside. I wasn't sure what to expect as I usually go to the Tate Modern but I feel I have seen everything there a few too many times now.
On the ground floor there was a massive exhibition of Ian Hamilton Finlay. I must say I was underwhelmed by the majority of it, although some of the large 3D type installations were quite interesting. I moved swiftly on through a huge room filled with classic British art. John Martin's massive apocalyptic scenes were really impressive and I stood staring at them for quite some time:
He must have been a fun guy to chat to at parties. I then wandered through a section of twentieth century painting and sculpture and was really impressed by this piece of classic Gilbert & George:
Seemed so strange that they had walked past me on Brick Lane the day before. I also really liked seeing the infamous "George the Cunt and Gilbert the Shit":
Another artist whose work I have always admired is Patrick Caulfield, so it was great to see some of his stuff full-size. I particularly like this piece and wonder if I might try to do something similar, combining photography and 3D/vector graphics:
I was feeling pretty inspired by this point, and generally impressed with everything I saw at the Tate. And then there was this:
This is Barry Flanagan's "Pile 3 '68". Pile of wank more like. How the crap does stuff like this get put on display in a gallery? I think it actually takes the piss more than Emin's "Shitted Bed" or Carl Andre's bricks. Apparently these "expressive cloth sculptures were a vehicle for investigating the behaviour of three-dimensional form, free from traditional notions of sculpture".
This proves that in art you can get away with pretty much anything providing you write a bunch of nonsensical bollocks to justify it. Perhaps I am just not cultured enough to "get it". Wank. Luckily my faith in art was restored when I walked into the next room and discovered a brilliant artist I had not heard of before.
This is Leadenhall Market by William Roberts. He made this in 1913 when he was just 17. I love the constructivist style and the muted tone of this piece in particular. It has a draughtsman-like quality that I really love. There were loads of other pieces by him in the large room, but I found that his work got less interesting as he got older.
I had a lot to cram into my final day, so it was time to move on. On the way out I walked down this beautifully painted staircase:
Next I headed to Euston and the Wellcome Collection to see "Death: A Self-Portrait"; a macabre collection of artworks and artefacts related to death that was being advertised all over London. There was some interesting stuff but I think I was most impressed with how the exhibition was curated and advertised. The information leaflet that accompanied the exhibition was designed to look like an order of service for a funeral. Nice attention to detail.
Morbid curiosity drew me to this exhibition, as I am sure it did many others, but death and mortality are things that occupy my mind a lot of the time so I probably would have benefited more from some distraction. There was a "nice" piece of infographics on the way out though, which showed causes of death in the twentieth century:
For a bit of light relief I headed upstairs to see the "Medicine Man" exhibition, which contained, among other ghastly things, a wide selection of authentic torture chairs and amputation saws. The Japanese in particular seem to have taken torture very seriously. All this death was making me hungry, so I headed for Soho to try a little place called Hummus Bros on Wardour Street.
I can highly recommend this place. The food was great and pretty cheap and the pittas were so fresh and hot from the oven. The main dish was a ring of gorgeous home-made hummus with a spicy beef stew in the middle. Different and totally delicious. After this wonderful feast, I made my way to the Barbican to have a look at the Rain Room. The Barbican was a bit of a pain to get to but it was worth it if only to enjoy the beauty of the building itself - it's like a 1960s Dutch airport!
There was a queue for the Rain Room but luckily it stretched nowhere near as far as the sign which stated "approximate queuing time from this point is 2 hours". I had walked in from the pissing rain to queue to walk through a Rain Room! I only had to wait about 15 minutes before I was ushered through a long, dark, curving corridor, I could hear the rain around the corner, which was strange, and the shadows of people on the walls looked haunting. Upon rounding the corner I reached the Rain Room itself. Basically it's a bunch of camera/sensors on the ceiling coupled to a bunch of sprinklers. When you walk underneath a sensor the associated sprinkler turns off, so you should remain dry. In theory.
The staff were only allowing a handful of people in at a time, otherwise I guess all the sprinklers would switch off, ruining the effect. Of course the group before me seemed to stand there fannying around forever. Yes, the rain stops as you walk through - get over it! Before I was allowed in, someone informed that I might want to take my black coat off as the sensors would not pick me up and I would get a soaking. Unfortunately I was wearing only a black shirt beneath it, so I kept my coat on and headed in. And got soaked! I managed to stay dry for a while by standing next to other, more brightly-attired people, although I soon got bored and made a dash for it. I must say that this indoor rain was very wet.
As I left the Barbican it was starting to get dark and I was aware that I only had a few hours before catching my train home. I still wanted to check out the Saatchi Gallery so I hopped on a tube to Sloane Square. I wandered around this ultra-posh area for quite some time without finding the gallery. Eventually I asked someone if I was in the right neck of the woods and they told me that I was stood outside where the Saatchi Gallery used to be. Apple's maps app strikes again. I was now getting really short on time so I headed off in the right direction and found the place at last:
I didn't really have the time for a leisurely stroll about the place, so I dashed around a collection of suitably depressing Russian photography, much of which seemed to consist of massive prints of naked tramps with hideously diseased cocks. Lovely. When I went back downstairs to the cloakroom to get my backpack, I noticed the distinct smell of sump oil. Of course! I almost forgot that this is where Richard Wilson's 20:50 was situated; something I had wanted to see for a long time. It didn't disappoint and I was lucky enough to be alone in the room, looking down at the beautifully-reflective void and contemplating death (again). It is a bit of a shame that some arseholes feel the need to drop things into it, spoiling the perfection of the surface.
And that was about it. I headed straight for Paddington just in time to catch my train home. This had been a really useful three days, hence these immense blog posts. I saw loads of great stuff and some shit, like the pile of blankets. Oh and there were these horrendous Christmas lights on Oxford Street:
Marmite? Really? If you are going to sell Christmas to the highest bidder then at least pick something that is at least relevant to the season. Perhaps Cadburys? Or Smirnoff? Heck, even Bernard Matthews! At least Carnaby Street and Chinatown made more of an effort:
No comments:
Post a Comment