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And so we found ourselves back
in London, or Bromley South, to be exact, as New Year approached, after our
trip up north to Old Trafford, Manchester, on Boxing day, to see Manchester
United, as well as two nights in the Peak District of Derbyshire including a walk
in the snow and visits to the villages of Eyam and Bakewell. On Thursday, 30th December, my brother Gordon, his daughter
Michelle and granddaughter Micaela elected to stretch our legs and venture
into the capital. I had hoped that we could get into a show on the West End
however, we had left it too late in terms of acquiring tickets for
Warhorse and so the next option was a museum or art gallery. After a
period of indecision whilst travelling in on the train to Victoria, during
which I couldn't decide between the Natural History Museum or Tate Modern, I
eventually opted for the latter. From Waterloo Tube we crossed the Thames
and strolled down the South Bank.
Tate Modern is a
modern art gallery located in London, England. It is Britain's
national gallery of international modern art and forms part of the
Tate
group (together with
Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool, Tate St Ives and Tate Online.
It is the most-visited modern art gallery in the world, with around
4.7 million visitors per year.
It is based in the former
Bankside Power Station, in the
Bankside area of
Central London.
The galleries are housed in the former
Bankside Power Station, which was originally designed by Sir
Giles Gilbert Scott, the architect of
Battersea Power Station, and built in two stages between 1947
and 1963. The power station closed in 1981. The collections in Tate
Modern consist of works of international modern and
contemporary art dating from 1900 onwards. Though the gallery was
playing host to a Gauguin exhibition, so popular that guided tours were
completely sold out, there was enough on the remaining levels of the
building to while away the
afternoon hours and titillate our interest, ranging from the artistic
brilliance of Joan Miró and Salvador Dali to
some more ludicrous pieces that pass as works of art, merely serving to
amuse rather than impress. Collection exhibitions are to be found on
levels 3 and 5, major temporary exhibitions of level 4 (such as the one
featuring Gauguin). Level 1, the Turbine Hall, which once housed the
electricity generators of the old power station, is five storeys tall with
3,400 square metres of floor space. It is used to display large
specially-commissioned works by contemporary artists between October and
March each year, as a sponsored exhibition. |
