London Trip

The Tate Modern & Tate Britain

This year, compared to last year, I was looking forwards to going to the Tate museums a lot more. In my second year of college, I didn't enjoy walking around the Tate Modern- the only Tate museum we went to last year- because I felt as though none of the artists or art pieces held any significance to me. Also, in my second year of college, it was my first trip to London, and so I was overwhelmed with the city and wasn't particularly interested in looking at the Tate, this was because, while I was still in school, I visited the Tate Liverpool, and had no respect for the art in there. I didn't feel like contemporary art was art, and that feeling resided until the end of my second year in college, when I realized tat the sort of art I disliked was actually the type of art I liked to create.

This year, not only when visiting London, I have been paying close attention to any art galleries we have visited, and have been photographing work of artists that are similar to what I do, or that could influence my work. This has helped me enjoy walking around the galleries, and the only time I haven't stuck to that rule is when I have had limited time to walk around the galleries.

The first gallery we visited upon arriving in London was the Tate Modern. As I have already said, last year, i had little to no interest surrounding this gallery, however this year I was exited, as there was an artist who had an exhibition that I had been wanting to see, and which happened to fall on the dates that we visited the gallery. This was the Philippe Parreno Hyundai commission, which was to be held in the Turbine Hall of the gallery. This was to be a huge installation of sound and imagery, which I had first seen being promoted on the Tate's Instagram account. However, when I actually got into the gallery, I actually found myself looking for other things, and completely disregarding the piece I had most wanted to see.

While walking across the turbine halls to the boiler rooms, however, I was bombarded with the sound of this installation, and so in a way, I didn't disregard some aspects of it. The nature of this piece meant that if you were on the same floor as the turbine hall, that you could hear it wherever you went, and could even hear it floors above when going up the escalators, and could also see it on every floor because of how the gallery is laid out. The sounds were both phenomenal but also relaxing, especially when I was walking back through the Turbine Hall, with the sound of rain echoing through this extremely tall space.

 

The first thing I looked for was the boiler rooms, which I heard had been emptied of the tanks they held, and used as further exhibition space. Unfortunately, while we were in the right space, it didn't actually occur to me and my friend that we were in the place we were looking for. We decided to look for it after we had walked around the rest of the gallery. 

One of the first things we came across was the Mark Rothko room. This room I had seen previously, and so I took a brief look. While I like the simplicity of his work, and the colours he uses, his work isn't something that inspires me, however I have used his work before when experimenting with techniques of applying paint.

While walking around these galleries, I was looking for bright and colourful pieces, particularly sculpture work, that was very simple, but was still very powerful. 

There were a few prints and paintings that caught my eye while walking around, as well as some sculpture.

I particularly liked the ones that used colour, and also the ones that were both prints and sculpture- some that stood out from the wall at different levels.

There was one sculpture in particular that caught my eye, which was a transparent coloured disk that hung from the ceiling with light being projected onto it. this disk slowly revolved around, and depending on where you stood within the space, would either reflect the colour of the shape in yellow on one wall, or would shine a blue spotlight-like light around half of the room.

I like this for its simplicity, but also because the installation stretched from the room it was in to the surrounding rooms because of the blue spotlight-like light. 

While I was walking around, I was also looking for pieces of interest and artists who I could do more research into and use as inspiration in my own work. While walking around, I found a couple of sculptures that were very much like the sort of things I do, and that also incorporated new elements that I myself wanted to try out.

This particular piece by Richard Tuttle caught my eye, as he uses a lot of raw material, but also uses bright colours and light. I liked this sculpture for the colours used, but also because there were some symmetrical elements in it, which I hadn't thought to try.

I also came across a sculpture by Phyllida Barlow, who has influenced a lot of my sculptural work.

I started using her work as inspiration because of her use of found objects and bright colours. I liked that her work, while being seemingly polished in the otherwise empty gallery space, was very raw, and used very industrial type materials.

In the room next to the piece by Pyllida Barlow, this piece caught my eye, as I have done something similar in the past, and had thought about retrying it.

This piece is by Niki de Saint Phalle, I like it for the texture and because o the incorporation of different elements into it, which I hadn't tried while creating things very similar to it. 

I also came across the infamous 'The Fountain' by Marcel Duchamp.

It was strange to walk around the place I hadn't appreciated a year before only to now notice a lot of work from artists I had looked at before as part of my work and research, such as work from Louise Nelevson and Duchamp.

I also really liked the Louise Bourgiose room.

I liked this room because everything in it followed a certain colourtheme, which was a mixture of pinks, reds and blacks. I liked the variation of solid and soft sculpture that hung from the ceilings, and the paintings and illustrations hanging on the wall. I also liked the distorted figures.

Lastly, when me and my friend had actually realised that we had been in the boiler rooms, we looked further and found a huge dark space that had numerous different video installations in it. This room was one of my favourites just because it had a weird way of sounding silent, but was full of noise.

After this, we went to the Tate Britain. This gallery was full of things, and as a result, we didn't actually get to look around properly, however, while I was there, i got to see Jacob Epsteins famous sculpture, and saw a Rosetti painting that I had only ever seen on the computer before,

There were less pieces of artwork in this gallery that were of interest to me, however I was still able to appreciate seeing all of the paintings that I had only ever seen on the internet. There were a couple of pieces that I liked, including a sculpture in the main hall of the Tate Britain, and some bright and colourful prints. I also liked the marble sculptures scattered throughout the rooms.

It was nice to see another Barbara Hepworth piece again, as I feel like she was a major influence, and the artist who turned me to sculpture, whether I realized it or not.

Here, there were a couple more paintings and prints that were also sculptures, and that stood out against the wall.

Overall, I really enjoyed the experience of walking around the gallery I had once despised, and actually finding interest in the things I saw there. It was surreal walking around and finding all of the artists I like and take inspiration from, as well as finding new artists to look into, tat will influence my artwork and change the way I work. I loved seeing all of the pieces in a gallery that I thought I wouldn't get to see, and I thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere of the huge and beautiful rooms whose walls were covered in art. I left London feeling inspired again after hitting a wall, and found myself with new ideas after finding myself without a direction to go.