Modern Art, Tate'nt All that Bad

10-3-2008

Today I felt like a college student in London. I set a record of sleeping in, 10:00. However, it was necessary after going to sleep six hours before that. I had a slow going morning. Eventually, I made it on my run. This time though, I brought my mobile with me to talk to others and figure out what I was to do with the rest of my day. I came to find out that my mobile actually tucks comfortably in a back pocket right above my buttocks. After one phone call, I decided to join a group with a tour of the Tate Modern Art Gallery.

Modern Art. The phrase entices some, and makes others cringe. I straddle the fence, which at times can be a bit painful.

Call me uncultured or someone who doesn’t appreciate all art, but about half the stuff in there just didn’t move me. And to me, that’s what art, in any form, should do. With modern art, the viewer spends too much time trying to interpret exactly what is on the canvas or exactly what a sculpture should be, that by the time it’s all figured out, emotion is an afterthought. I played a game with Rachel in which we tried to interpret what the artist intend in each work, or at least what our interpretation was. Each time our thoughts were completely different from the artists.

I guess my biggest critique of modern art is that so many of these artist are afraid to just be literal. There was a massive clay / bronze sculpture that took up the corner of a room. It looked like diarrhea pouring down from the heavens on to little turds below (I’m sorry but that’s the only way I know how to describe it). Upon reading the description, it’s supposed to represent a lightening bolt from the heavens giving life to yet undeveloped beings. Why can’t the blobs of poop on the ground at least resemble creatures and the pouring bowl movement from the heavens look like a lightening blot?

Another example: say you want to address the issue of domestic animal abuse. Instead of painting a picture of a battered dog cowering in a corner, you splash paint on a canvas while your dog watches….sounds ridiculous, but that’s modern art.

Now, some of it I absolutely LOVED. Take the previous example. You can draw a dog cowering in the corner and distort it all you want, but I still want to know it’s a dog. That’s the stuff I loved. There were even some completely ridiculous pieces that really spoke to me and I loved that. Here are my top picks:

• Paul McCarthy – Projection Room: very disturbing images of self-mutilation, but it does what it’s supposed to, makes the audience uncomfortable
  
• Jannis Kounellis – Untitled: a factory painted on the wall spewing smoke with two dead birds above the smoke with arrows though them
  
• Paul Nash – Landscape from a Dream: Surrealism which plays on the ideas of Frued
  
• Jackson Pollock – Naked Man with a Knief: very Picasso-like
  
• Edward Burra – The Snack Bar: Exaggerated figures in an everyday setting of a dinner bar, there exists an odd tension between the man, woman, and ham
  
• Diego Rivera – Mrs. Helen Wills Moody: huge face potrait
  
• Meredith (male) Frampton – Portrait of a Young Woman: she’s standing next too a cello, realism done very well, the picture is extremely vibrant and carries with it a radiant shine that cannot be caught from a camera. He said about this painting “[it is] a relaxation from commissions, and to celebrate an assembly of objects…beautiful in their own right”
• Cornelia Parker – 30 pieces of Silver: thousands of flattened pieces of silver arranged into 30 discs hung by strings, floating them about 6 inches above the ground. The shadows left by the images made the work. Upon further research into the piece I found out that the 30 pieces represent the payment to Judas for betraying Jesus
  
• Pawet Kwiek – a Polish pioneer in experimental video techniques
  
• Jenny Holzer – Inflammatory Essays: arranged into a colorful full wall display, about 12 essays each exactly 100 words and 20 lines
  
• Susan Hiller – States of Flux: five simultaneous videos focusing on telekinesis
  
• Ohh and I saw Andy Warhol and Pablo Picasso… I like Andy better.

And of course, I had to end the night at the ISH bar. Don't judge me. They have the cheapest drinks in London.