First thing was to be reminded of what a splendid space the turbine hall is. Large, warm, usually sparsely occupied and where one is free to quietly stroll about, to sit or to lie on the floor. Serves for me the same sort of purpose as a London church.
Second thing was to admire the small boy, a toddler, who was enjoying himself and entertaining his two minders in the enclosure which stopped us from getting too up close and personal with the bottom of Tuttle's work (bottom right of the illustration).
Third thing was to think of the wings of a model aeroplane, the sort of thing one makes with balsa wood and covers with paper and dope. A sport of which I was aware of as a child but which, for some reason and despite making other kinds of wooden models, I never got into: too fiddly perhaps for my rather clumsy skills.
Fourth thing was to wonder about the cost of the huge quantity of fabric and plywood involved. We were told that the fabric, fabricated to order in India, was an artist designed and specified mixture of natural (silk) and unnatural (unspecified). From which one deduces that the chap knows his fabrics. We are also told of the large number of supporters, both commercial and private, which goes toward answering the wonder. There was also a small display in a side room, telling us more about the work and including the opportunity to finger samples of the fabrics used in the work itself.
All that said, while I was not that convinced by the thing as a work of art, the artist had made good use of the space available. It was very much the right sort of object.
From there up to the members room to enjoy the view and a very reasonable veggie lunch. Choice of three salads for a fiver and a glass of very decent white, served in a genuine glass, for the same amount.
From there into a rather odd display of audio-visual stuff recycled into art in Korea. I pass on this one but there is an instructive snippet about the nature of modern art from a news item on the internet: 'a series of pioneering works by the Korean “father of video art”, whose installations anticipated the YouTube age, will go on display at Tate Modern today, after being acquired by the institution... A record £6 million, multi-year sponsorship deal with Korean carmaker Hyundai, has helped Tate Modern acquire nine key works by Nam June Paik, the Seoul-born inventor of video art, who died aged 73 in 2006'.
And so, for the first time for quite a while, into one of the regular galleries. A gallery which contained a very eclectic mixture of stuff, the only connection being, I think, that it was all from the 20th century. Very roughly speaking, I thought that about a third was content free, a third with content but not of interest to me and a third with content which was of interest to me. The first category included things like a large orange square set on a purple rectangle; not even of any use, to my mind, to decorate the atrium of some show-off building in the city, never mind an art gallery. The third category included a small painting - about a metre high by half a metre wide and properly framed - by Kandinsky which I did like. Very much a painter from the Grand Tradition, despite its departure from some parts of that tradition. Also some larger, simpler paintings of much more recent date. And I continue to like some of the more complex abstracts of Ben Nicholson, of which they had a few examples. So plenty to see and we shall be back. Not just giant plastic spiders.
PS 1: the giant plastic spider which was at Tate Brick may have been relocated to Ottawa. There is one there, outside their flashy new National Gallery (see reference 2) and very like the one I remember from London.
PS 2: I associate from glasses of wine to wondering yesterday about the prohibition of glasses in our glass recycling box from the council. I made inquiries and learned from the Borough of Lewisham that glasses are excluded because the glass from which they are made usually includes strengthening additives which taint what you get when you try to recycle the stuff. Full marks to Lewisham for having the answer. Perhaps Epsom & Ewell ought to include a few words to this effect on their recycling leaflet.
Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/japanese-fabric.html and the post which precedes it.
Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/two-arts-and-building.html.
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