The inside of that forsaken Tate Modern Art Gallery

I have officially been to the worst place in London...The Tate Modern Art Gallery. From the outside one could easily mistake this shoddy brick building for just another dingy hole in the wall on this side of town. Nothing about it stuck out or could catch somebody's eye- except for the fact that there was an ice cream truck...and that's bound to catch everybody's eye..ICE CREAM!!! To put it blatantly, the outside was a foreshadow of what I was actually about to see...Walking in the door there is a decline that you walk down to get to the gallery...Upon first glance I thought I was at the YMCA in downtown Chicago; cement floors, construction workers and their noises, scaffolds, exposed supports. I thought to myself: This IS the museum, right? Everything was in plain black and beige with outlines of sea foam green. If there is one colour I hate...it is undoubtedly sea foam green. From my critique thus far you are probably wondering why I even went...Because if I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have been able to write this =) I really did think it was going to be decent, and I'm trying to see everything I can while I'm here- regardless of whether I want to go or not. Don't get me wrong, not all of the artwork in the building was terrible...but a majority of it was.

Are we so desperate to create and inspire that we can believe an epiphany will arise from two different coloured squares on the wall? or that we are expressing our souls and changing social order from a slash mark in a canvas? What ever happened to talent? You know...the kind where it took someone YEARS to create a masterpiece and when it was completed, every little detail was perfectly in place and perfectly significant of an important issue or feeling. Nowadays, these "artists" paint a canvas the same colour and call it a day. What? My four-year-old niece can do that and no one is putting her "artwork" in a prestigious gallery. Maybe I should find her an agent or something if this is how it's going to be. Matter-of-fact, I'm pretty sure half of the stuff in the gallery is somewhere in my basement in a Memory Box...stuff that I drew in art class in elementary school. I think the term for modern "artists" should now be: No talent ass-clowns. (Thank you Office Space)

These "artists" come with explanations of their art. I wonder, why? Let me answer my own question...because no one can understand it!!!! There is no longer any reason to try and interpret artwork, simply because it can't be interpreted. Modern art is the artists' way of making up a new language or way of thinking that no one understands but yet everyone does and begs to be part of. Loaded statement? You bet! It's some sort of status of your intellectual ability..."If you can't understand Lucio Fontana, then you must be dense. We studied in France and speak French and drink coffee while discussing the newest artists that no one has ever heard of. We make big deals about nothing because we honestly have nothing better to do and are so pompous that we simply MUST come up with someone that can make a squiggly line. Our often-exaggerated respect for artists makes us look like we know what we are talking about and then we can fit in with the art community. We intellectuals feel the shapes in our souls and the colours ricochet throughout our inner core..." and the bullshit continues.

To further my point, I will now show you examples, some of them with what was written in the gallery next to them, and some with my own commentary (which I'm sure you are all dying to hear)

Lucio Fontana- Waiting

In 1959, Fontana began to cut the canvas, with dramatic perfection. These cuts (or tagli) were carefully pre-meditated but executed in an instant. Like the holes, they have the effect of drawing the viewer into space. In some, however, the punctures erupt from the surface carrying the force of the gesture towards the viewer in a way that is at once energetic and threatening. Although these actions have often been seen as violent, Fontana claimed ‘I have constructed, not destroyed.’

You're kidding me...un-freaking-believable

Henri Matisse- The Snail

The Snail is one of the last and largest pieces in Matisse’s final series of works, known as cutouts. Confined to bed through illness, he had assistants paint sheets of paper in gouache which he then cut. The shell of a snail inspired the spiralling arrangement of roughly cut pieces of paper. Compared to his earlier paintings, Matisse believed that he had gained ‘greater completeness and abstraction’ in the cutouts. ‘I have attained a form filtered to its essentials’, he remarked.

"Form filtered to its essentials" what??? You cut out pieces of paper and glued them on a bigger piece of paper..there is nothing extravagent or amazing about what you did!

Robert Mangold- Redwall

Red Wall was one of a series of works inspired by the industrial loft architecture of New York City. Combining painting and sculpture, they were constructed using standard-sized sheets of plywood-backed masonite, fitted together to suggest portions of walls, doorways and windows. They were then painted using a spray gun to create a neutral, uninflected monochrome surface. According to the artist, the choice of colours was intended to evoke ordinary objects, in this case ’brick-red’.

I will evoke an ordinary object, and I guarantee you're not going to like it...I feel so 'brick-red' right now with englightenment...I'm glad I saw this...

Barnett Newman- Adam

From the mid-1940s Newman had been preoccupied with the Jewish myths of Creation. The vertical strips in his paintings may relate to certain traditions that present God and man as a single beam of light. The name Adam, which in the Old Testament was given to the first man, derives from the Hebrew word adamah (earth), but is also close to adom, (red) and dam (blood). The relationship between brown and red in this painting may therefore symbolise man's intimacy with the earth.

Normally in paintings that symbolize or represent traditions dealing with god, there are more than two lines in it...I could be wrong, (which I highly doubt), but this required no talent.

Ellsworth Kelly- Black Square with Blue

Once again, two squares put together...What does this even mean????

Gerhard Richter- Grey

Grey is the epitome of non-statement’, he has observed, ‘it does not trigger off feelings or associations, it is actually neither visible nor invisible... Like no other colour it is suitable for illustrating ‘nothing’.’ Such observations go hand-in-hand with the artist’s frequently expressed resistance to ideologies of any kind.

I like to talk for no reason and put words together that sound good, too.

Dan Flavin- the diagonal of May 25, 1965

This is the worst of them all. A light, that he did not make, screwed at an angle to a wall and called art. I couldn't find the blurb next to his "art" that was in the gallery, but I do know it said that Dan Flavin thought first using a flourescent light was a 'personal breakthrough.' Uh...of what? How could that possibly even be seen as a personal breakthrough??

I hope the next genre of art requires a little bit more talent and little less gullibility.

On a good note though...I saw some Monet and Warhol and some Pablo..and that was neat.

Millenium Bridge

Ciao

k

written by  flaminko on June 2, 2007 from London, United Kingdom
from the travel blog: 'Ello Guvnah
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Ah, too bad. I always thought that the Tate Modern was one of London's best. the renovated building is used well and creates an a strange sense of space when you approach from the water and walk on the stone pathway there.

While Modern/ contemporary art may not be your cup of tea the Tate does have a great collection. I bet that you will think about those pieces you saw for a while, even if you don't like them. Which is to say, that they worked.

There are a lot of other institutes in London that I think you will enjoy though. Have fun!

written by  Benjamin Satterfield on June 2, 2007

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