We awoke and got out pretty early on the first day in London. Kate and Peter had to go to work, so we planned to get out into the city on our own. Erin is THE Mistress of Public Transit with a compass embedded in her brain. She sent me off to the Tate Modern with my own set of directions while she went to the British Museum. Public transit is so easy, even for a directionally challenged moron like me, what with a killer bus system in addition to the Underground. It’s a bit hectic at peak hours, but overall very easy and painless to use. There is a lot of walking, but it is a city best explored on foot, and after a couple of days in Europe, the walking was a cinch. In fact, now being back, I feel incredibly lazy. Boo.
I walked across Millennium Bridge toward the Tate and just tried to savor the moment of really being in London.
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| From London Town, UK 2009 |
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| From London Town, UK 2009 |
It is a beautiful, diverse place filled with people from every corner of the world. It makes America seem somewhat homogenous. There’s just not any blatant racism or culturalism, although it is quite competitive in every possible way. The best thing to do is just psyche yourself up to go with it and suddenly everything is easy and perfect.
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The Tate Modern is the most brilliant modern art museum I have ever been in and quite possibly in the world. It was by far my most favorite experience of the trip and I could have easily spent two days there alone.
Art is probably the most important thing humans have to give themselves and each other, and here it is revered, nearly worshiped, rather than treated as a waste of time or silly hobby like in the States. I had a lot of mind blowing realizations while there about art and philosophy and life in general. Mostly about possibilities for how my life could be and that making art is something I have to do for myself if I truly want to live a fulfilled life. I thought a lot about what it would be like to live overseas, in a place that seems to have things a bit more worked out than we do. When I travel, I feel totally alive, more so than any other time and I realized that it should be my number one priority. Work as hard as I can so I can travel as hard as I can. The Tate is a GIFT, I could have spent days there and could go back again and again and again. And never get enough.
“I can burn your face.”
After completion, it was heavily censored by the Dutch government and forbidden to be released in its original form to the public. Wanting to see how much of herself she could really lose to this world of secrets and lies, she agreed to comply with the orders and the Tate installation is the one time showing of this work, after which it will be returned to the Dutch government and either destroyed or locked away forever.
The installation consists of excerpts from the novel done in bright red neon in the artist’s handwriting.
There is also a room with large hanging pages which she created by hand in pen and ink. The novel, Becoming Tarden, is itself now under glass, in a box, the cover removed and ripped off. A sculpture. It will never be read, even the author will never see it again. The secret will never be known.
30 minutes inside = Mind blown COMPLETELY apart.
Next came the exhibit of propaganda posters from the Soviet Union, dating from pre-Russian Revolution all the way to the early 90s when the country essentially ceased to exist. The art itself is so creative and edgy, some of the best graphic design work ever done, especially early on. Not only do I love the style, but the messages were so powerful and intimidating and invoke a not only a sense of hope, optimism, and nationalism, but a deep and lasting paranoia that we are only beginning to understand now. Presenting these ideas and ideals to a people who in the end had no power, no food, no heat, and no life in such a way really affected me. It was truly a 1984 moment for me in that room. The state was an epic failure in the end, but these earlier posters represent the promise of a better society. A better world where people get it right, where young workers unite for a greater good, but then crumble into a Stalinist desert regime of bland, bleak hopelessness.
Some of my favorite translations:
“Universal education is the decisive step for the cultural revolution.”
“It is a small step from gossip to treason.”
“Everyone sign up for a shock work.”
“In the countries of capitalism, this is the Path of Talent. In the countries of Socialism, all paths are open to talent. “ (I believe this one was Viktor Koretsky)
During my viewing of this exhibition, I began to have a slight panic attack. My mind was consumed by thoughts of all the regular people who had designed these beautiful pieces of art. By the fearlessness of Jill Magid. By the power that art has over me and that I need to be exposed to it, to make it, to see it, touch it, live inside of it, and breathe it. Not just today. But everyday. It was really a "What are you doing with your life?" kind of panic attack. I'm sure you can pick out the exact moment of the attack by looking at my notes:
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| From London Town, UK 2009 |
I bought Maria Lafont's Soviet Posters - Sergio Grigorian Collection at the Tate bookstore. There's a great historical article about the exhibit and some of the artists here: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/nov2005/post-n14.shtml
I roamed the Tate for over two hours and made notes as I went. Gangs of English schoolchildren in their uniforms were all over the place. People were writing, talking quietly, sketching, and interacting with the art. It was spectacular. I want to live and die in the Tate Modern.
Observations and Realizations:
Mark Rothko is highly overrated. Philip says I shouldn't judge him out of context, but out of context is the only way I ever see him. I stand by my statement. Boring.
Ed Ruscha’s “The Final End”, 1992 - A lot of the art I like is about death and /or very dark and fucked up. This wasn't particularly mind blowing as a piece, but I looked at it for a long time thinking of death. I enjoy the use of typography and text in artwork.
Jean Dubuffet’s “Theater of Fluids” - "This looks how I feel.”
Jackson Pollock’s “Untitled Number 14” - black paint on canvas done in 1951
Jackson Pollock is one of my all time favorite painters ever, and this feeling is enhanced each time I see one of his works in person. The reproductions just don't do him justice at all. I feel like his paintings try to eat my energy when I look at them. Like chaos and math and fractal geometry and god are inside waiting for people who 'get it' to get too close and then snatch them up into the ninth dimension. This painting looked at me and wanted to eat me.
Next I moved on to a room that had an explicit advisory on the outside. Viennese Actionism. Wow.
I came first upon Herman Nitsch, a performance artist and photographer. His work consists of photographs of his live art performances, which are ritual in concept and heavily filled with blood, brutality, mutilation of organs, and overtones of sexuality and religious oppression. Many of the photos I saw were in black and white, but almost even more disturbing due to knowing inherently, even in black and white, that he was using real blood. Blood is blood, no matter what color it is. You just know it as a human.
Other notable Austrian performance artists of this movement included:
VALIE EXPORT - Aktionshose: Genitalpanik (Action Pants: Genital Panic)
As I continued through the Surrealism wing, I continued the brain pulsations in my notes.
"Do not rely on technology. Surrealism and Marxism intertwine. We are obsessed with history. Yet no other population that has ever lived has experienced this mechanized, compartmentalized, specialized, electronic life, so far removed from anything real and organic, the speed with which we live and learn has put the entire planet on the verge of mental and physical collapse."
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| From London Town, UK 2009 |
Stay tuned for more Tate and Borough Market, Part Two tomorrow.
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