Tate Modern in London: England’s Coolest Art Museum?
This is part of a continuing series of photographs from my 21-day, three country, five city
winter vacation to Europe with my ladyfriend Serena.
After a visit to London’s National Gallery, we turn our attention to the Tate Modern – quite possibly England’s coolest art museum.
Ah, to finally be in London – where it was pretty damn cold. But no worries, being the art museum nerds Serena and I are, we were perfectly happy spending several hours of our day inside London’s many acclaimed (and warm) art museums. You know, like the Tate Modern.
Tate Modern houses the United Kingdom’s national collection of international modern and contemporary art (created from or after 1900). It forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. Tate Modern is one of the largest museums of modern and contemporary art in the world. 115 million people have visited the museum since it opened on May 11, 2000.
It is located in the former Bankside Power Station, in the Bankside area of the London Borough of Southwark, just over Millennium Bridge (nicknamed it the “Wobbly Bridge” by Londoners), a pedestrian-only suspension bridge that spans the River Thames in London. It connects St. Paul’s Cathedral on the north bank with the Tate Modern on the south bank.
Tate Modern
The converted former Bankside Power Station supplied electricity to the city and to part of north Southwark from 1891 to 1981. In 1995, Swiss architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron were announced as the winners of an international competition for the commission to convert the power station to the Tate. Herzog & de Meuron just so happen to be the architects behind the Pérez Art Museum Miami that overlooks Biscayne Bay.
But who is this Tate person the museum is named after, you ask? Well, it was Henry Tate, an industrialist who had made his fortune as a sugar refiner. In 1889, he offered his collection of British nineteenth-century art to the nation and provided funding for the first Tate Gallery.
With the help of an £80,000 donation from Tate himself, the gallery at Millbank, now known as Tate Britain, was built and opened in 1897. Tate’s original bequest of works, together with works from the National Gallery, formed the founding collection. Tate died in Streatham, a district in south London, on December 5, 1899 at the age of 80.
As with the UK’s other national galleries and museums, there is no admission charge for access to the collection displays, which take up the majority of the gallery space, whereas tickets must be purchased for the major temporary exhibitions.
“The Execution of Beloyannis” (1953-4) by British artist Peter de Francia (1921-2012)
Following the Greek Civil War in 1946-9, the charismatic Greek Communist leader Nikos Beloyannis was unjustly charged with spying for the Soviet Union. Despite international protests, he and three other men were executed in March 1952. De Francia portrayed Beloyannis’s death in what he called ‘a large history painting… tackled in a very modern way’.
Royal Massacre Series 1, (2001) by Nepali artist Shashi Bikram Shah
This display explores civil conflict, mourning and memory in a series of works documenting one of the most significant moments in recent Nepali history. Nepali artist Shah created this series of drawings, known as the Royal Massacre Series, in the aftermath of the 2001 assassination of Nepal’s royal family.
WITNESSES (Burning Country Installation)
Burning Country refers to traumatic events witnessed by Indonesian artist Arahmaiani in her home country of Indonesia in May 1998. During a period of economic crises, food shortages and unemployment, students began demonstrating against the authoritarian regime of President Suharto. The killing of four students at a protest triggered three days of arson attacks and acts of racially motivated violence, mostly directed against the Chinese Indonesian population. Around 1,500 people were raped or murdered. This work is a memorial ‘for the souls of the women who were violated and killed’ during the riots.
“Selbstbildnis (Self-Portrait)” (1927) by German artist Christian Schad (1894-1982)
Schad claimed that ‘no-one is entirely free from narcissism. This self-portrait is loaded with symbols connected to identity and appearance.
GUERRILLA GIRLS
This display shows the work of the anonymous feminist collective who use daring text and phrases to expose injustice in the art world and beyond.
“Babel” (2001) by Brazilian conceptual artist Cildo Meireles, is a tower of radios playing at once, addressing ideas of information overload and failed communication.
Japanese artist Mari Katayama uses her body and the materials she finds around her to make self-portraits, embroidered objects and living sculptures. Born with the developmental condition congenital tibial hemimelia, Katayama chose to have her legs amputated at the age of nine. Her wearable sculptures, which also feature in her images, often include limbs, hands and embellished hearts. She has said, ‘The hearts I make are always “broken” hearts. That’s because a broken heart, which has been bumped, tumbled and battered, shines like a mirror ball, and reflects light from multiple sides, good and bad, much more than a fresh and smooth heart without a scratch.
ART AND RELIGION ROOM: In this installation from Museum of Contemporary African Art, Meschac Gaba brings together over 75 objects related to various world religions and cultures.
Polish artist Edward Krasiński’s (1925-2004) “12 mirrors and tape” installation (2001) consists of 12 mirrors suspended from the ceiling. A continuous line of blue adhesive tape runs along the walls and the surface of each mirror.
The Tate Modern was everything we hoped it would be – a world-class modern art museum that was one of the highlights of our time in London. Don’t miss it…
