So. One bright and breezy Tuesday I decided to go and visit the newly refurbished Tate Britain, to check out the changes. Perhaps I had been influenced by the persistent advert campaign on the tube declaring ‘you must come see’, or maybe I was just looking to be inspired. A bit of both most likely.
First impressions – it is light, bright, and lofty. Well, it would be if there hadn’t been a gaggle of school children clutching fresh sketchbooks.
I particularly loved the overlapping tile design on the floor:
And this beautifully simplistic map to help with orientation, that brought to mind images of a lift in 1920s New York.
This mural was here before the renovation I think but still adds a great and a little unexpected sense of humanism to the building:
Genius idea. And now, onto the art itself. Each time I visit something different usually catches my eye, but there are a handful of regulars that always make me stop and stare. The principle one being ‘A Bigger Splash’ by David Hockney. I love the way he’s captured a moment after it has just happened. There is a perpetual sense of a motion drawing to end, a gesture in its last drag that is both futile and alluring. The composition is bodily boring and daringly cold.
Howard hodgkin has again always been a favourite. That red just pops out with all the life that an inanimate object can ever project.
On to Bridget Riley, an Op-art legend. She sure knows how to manipulate the eye. I always feel like looking at one of her pieces is like having and eye-test. I love the way this piece, ‘Nataraja’, seems to come out towards the viewer.
This nude by Matthew Smith is precisely the kind of drawing my art teacher at school used to show us before life-drawing class. A perfect example of how colours can be manipulated to create something that is while not a true representation, is still a true likeness.
I’ve recently discovered this artist, David Bomberg. This work, ‘The Mud Bath’, reduces the human form to vague, geometric shapes that seem to be in constant movement.
This rather small painting by Edward Wadsworth is by far not his most famous, but I quite like the secret interplay between the two suspended amorphous shapes.
Peter Doig, ‘Ski Jacket’. Makes me of a friend who recently moved to Montreal, Canada.
I’ll be honest; I usually find sculpture very hard to understand, let alone like. Tony Cragg‘s sculpture here, ‘stack’, has appealed to me on this occasion I think because it fulfils some OCD thing inside me to have everything slotted in together in perfectly fitting, compact shapes. He must be very good at packing for holidays! His sketches are worth a goggle as well.
I found this composition by William Scott very calming.
One of the larger works that took up a whole room was this installation by the Chapman brothers, entitled ‘The Chapman Family Collection.’ I really liked this piece. As you walk into the room, the lights are dimmed, its cosy and at the same time a little sinister feeling. You see several what appear to be wooden carvings from what you assume are tribal communities around the world. On closer inspection, there’s signs all is not as it should be. Ronald McDonald peers out at you through the gloom. ‘McDonalds’ is lovingly inscribed into a wooden shield. These objects are highlighting the superficiality of not own our contemporary lifestyles, but our inability of perceive things as they really are. It a simplified version of a lot of wider issues, yet sometimes the most simplistic messages are the most powerful.
Lastly, a question to you:
do you read the description first or look at the painting/sculpture first?!
Polly Taylor Designs 