Wednesday, 10 April 2013

Lichtenstein, take 2

Following the first visit to the Lichtenstein exhibition on or about 6th April, back for a second bite yesterday, feeling the need to maximise the value from my shiny new membership.

As a result of which the view remains unchanged: interesting but a bit of a puzzle why the chap is such an eminence. Although a bit content lite, compared, for example with Canaletto, I was attracted by his sense of humour and by his craft and certainly at the time he did them, the works on show must have involved a lot of craft work, not for the faint hearted, although even he wobbled a bit around the edges, with quite a bit of sloppy brush work visible up close. One positive dislike was the late nudes which I thought ugly - and if they were ugly what on earth was the point? And I found the mirrors and entablatures unsettling, unsettling not in their content (not that I care for that either) but in the way that they seemed to interfere with my sight. All the cunningly placed dots and lines interfered with the way that my brain worked, which may well have been the intention, but I did not care for it.

Then down into the tanks below, with their strong smell of fresh concrete. An interesting space, full on this occasion with screens screening throbby music and low grade ballet. One wonders what they will do with them during the advertised closure for fitting out: will they do as well as they have done with the turbine hall?

Followed by a careful inspection of the members bar, particularly the two verandas, the larger one with a splendid modernist outlook, big chimney, big glass and all, but we decided not to partake and wandered down to the street to sample the new to us 'Vapiano' instead - see http://www.vapiano.com/ to see how many of the places there are, scattered across the globe Lots in Germany and places nearby. A restaurant with a new take on canteen, in that you queue up with a tray at one of a number of hatches while your meal is thrown together and cooked while you watch (mine involving a small packet of frozen ravioli among the fresher ingredients). But instead of the 'common table' format of some other chains, at this one you can have your own table. Visually both the food and the place were attractive. Reasonably priced with reasonable, sensible bread supplied free, including seconds. Sensible in the sense that it was just warm white bread, none of this complicated stuff with nuts, lumps and what have you favoured by other establishments, for example 'The (nearby) Refinery' of the week before. So a big plus for their bread arrangements. Food fine, if mine was a little cream full, but that could be avoided on another occasion. We speculate on whether there will be one, given the number of decent restaurants in the vicinity of Big Tate, but we do think that we would avoid busy times when the queueing at the hatches might turn into a bit of a pain.

Back home to wonder why one pays a premium for stone ground flour. What has it got, apart from enhanced price and stone dust, that steel milled flour hasn't got? How have stones managed to work their way into the organic, natural slot, to the exclusion of steels?

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