Advertisement
Published: June 26th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Elgin Marbles
Here or in Greece? What do you think? Today a few of us headed to the Tate Modern Museum of Art. This was following another exhilirating class. It is such a fabulous group of people! We all shared a bit about ourselves today, accomplishments from this past year, etc. They were all so amazing, and we agreed we will get together and do more of it! We can learn so much simply from each other if we open our minds to do so.
I always enjoy a couple of hours of modern art, but only on a full stomach! So we stopped for lunch first. It still hasn't rained today, but it certainly has not risen above 60 degrees F either! IT's CHILLY! We needed to get inside, so we went to the Tate Cafe. Nothing too adventurous eaten by any, but my salad was the saltiest thing I've ever tasted in my life. It looked like a simple red vinaigrette, but Emily and I had each ordered one, and it was just awful! I was hungry, so I gobbled it down quickly, but after just a few bites felt like I'd eaten 100 salty chips or pretzels or peanuts or something. Never experienced that before!
I'll pinpoint
Flowy skirts
See what I mean (see the British Museum entry) about how flowy she looks even though it's a solid carving. the few things I really enjoyed today at the Tate. I always know that modern art is subjective and often acquired taste... like the large clay ball that looked like dung but was supposed to represent nature? Well, I didn't get that one. Or the giant red canvas with a line through it? Not that either.
Still, I saw a Matisse entitled, "The Snail" which he created in 1953 almost entirely bedridden. He had to have help painting many large pieces of paper, and then he jaggedly and imperfectly cut them and had them shaped similarly to a snail in a sort of a spiral. His statement of this was, "I have attained a form filtered to its essentials." He died in 1954. How amazing to be able to know you have achieved this in your lifetime... to achieve essential form! I think we should all strive for this in our lifetimes, whether it be through physical/visual art or through some other prioritizing in life.
Then I saw a Frize painting which talked about how he laid the large canvas on the floor and worked with speed. He just wanted things to happen quickly, and never really knew what the
miw
Mummified cats! Weird, huh? outcome would be. Frize allowed it (the experience, the act of painting), to determine the final composition. That requires a lot of self trust in my opinion, and exploration. That cavalier attitude may not be appropriate at all times, but sometimes we need to just let ourselves go and let life happen!
The final artist I really admired was Rothko. He had this giant Blue canvas with some red and some yellow at either end. It said that he doesn't name his paintings becase he wants the art to be what it is, not a bias based on a title. He did say that the red was put there to contrast with the blue, and the yellow represented some aspect of anti-political statement. I liked that it just was, and yet it almost screamed non-conformity for me. I would be so curious to ask 100 other people what they think? He also had these giant canvases, reddish and blackish which were originally intended to go into a restaurant, but he loved them too much to put them there so he donated them to the Tate. They were very calming, and prior to reading the board on them, I felt that
Sutton Soo Burial
I'd like to eat off of this! a cocktail party would be lovely in the room housing all 9 of these giant works of art.
After admiring this section of the Tate, we headed to the first floor where they have an exhibit titled, "Global Cities." It is exploring 10 of the largest cities in the world through form, size, diversity, speed, and density. It is a little scary to know that the prediction is for 75% of the world's growing population to live in cities by the year 2050. It is also noteworthy that when they were discussing slums on a big screen and showed where the world's slums were, NONE were shown in the U. S. and Canada! NONE! Anything we think of as poverty is not viewed that way to the rest of the world. It made me stop and think how lucky I am, since right now there's not much more than that I can do. The exhibit was also a bit scary: the amount of people, poverty, lack of green, and what drives this. Is it money? Is it race? Is it education? I was intrigued and a little sad as I left this exhibit. I took along a pamphlet which I will read further to decide whether to go back or not.
We walked across the Milennium Bridge and saw the sun reappear, feeling the cold breeze over the Thames. Made it home for a nap, had a flat dinner of spaghetti, finished my homework, and now I am pub-bound! It's about time. (by the way, last night I bought a gin and tonic in a can and it was even diet tonic...10% alcohol, so it had a bite to it, and just hilarious! At the local grocery store!) Love to all and keep your messages coming!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.088s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 5; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0616s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb