Yesterday I visited the Tate Modern with Mike and James. We met at the Blackfriars Tube station, crossed the Millenium Bridge, grabbed a quick bite at the Founders' Arms, and then spent a few hours looking at art.
The Tate Modern, housed in a former power station, was designed by Herzon and de Meuron. This Swiss architecture firm is the same one that did the deYoung Museum in San Francisco. The building is huge and impressive, especially when going over the bridge. Even though the building has only been reclaimed as the museum since 2000, its current form is already a recognized part of the skyline along the Thames.
Here is something that I wish we did in America: museums are free. Not just on certain days or for certain age groups - every day. There is a donation box (suggested £3), but there is no feeling of shame if you do not have the means to give that day. What this means is that museums are for everyone, to be visited on a regular basis. For special exhibits, there is a charge (usually around £10), but you could easily spend the day wandering through the permanent collections and have your art hunger totally satiated.
I had read about the Louise Bourgeois exhibit, although I didn't know much about the sculptor before seeing her work yesterday. It was a large installation, exploring her views in relation to her family, sexuality, and her place in the world, through various mediums: painting, sculpture, and huge "rooms" with found objects inside. The sculptures were the most impressive to me - especially the marble and bronze. It's always amazing to me that something as hard as marble can be manipulated into looking like a fluid piece of fabric or supple skin, or polished to a perfect sphere, sometimes in the same piece. The overall feeling of the exhibit was dark and heavy (one of the final installations was a couple, made of stuffed fabric, fornicating in a Victorian box that was not dissimilar to a coffin), but at the same time I felt a bit disconnected from the artist. It was definitely a glimpse into the depth of her psyche, but like the Victorian box, I felt that there was something kept between us, the viewers, and her.
At 3:30pm it gets dark. As many times as I have experienced this in London, it is still a bit of a shocker. Because of this, night feels endless - we were sitting in the Nag's Head pub in Covent Garden at 4:00pm and it felt like 8:00pm. It is no wonder that the pubs and coffee bars are constantly full - you have to do something to continually warm your insides while the outside creates an environment that is best suited to a day spent in bed.
