Tate Modern

Before leaving Tooting Bec and Kelly’s house, I decided to take a day, just a day to myself and do some more investigating. I headed to the Tate Modern, it seemed that Mark and I were never in-tune with one anothers time schedules and I couldn’t not see it… and I am so glad I did. I’ve been a few times since that first experience, but the first was the most intriguing.

I headed across the Millennium Bridge – which I still expected to wobble, but unfortunately they’d already sorted the quirks out and so it was still as a cacti in the desert – and proceeded in through the ornamental and sparse gardens to the open and intimidating space that is the Tate Modern. I believe I’ve explained before that this was originally an industrial space, potentially a water tower – I forget now, forgive me. At the same time, to make use of such a space, to… rather than pull it down and construct apartments and stores, to develop the interior while retaining the exterior architecture, I hope that it remains there for time to come, so much architecture has been lost. Its funny, I always resented anything that wasn’t pleasing to the eye, now I understand that buildings are statement of not only time, but functuality, and that both are important for us to acknowledge, to appreciate and understand. I wonder if the modern Roman’s wanted to pull down the colluseum for something grander and more modern, and what a loss it would be if they did so.

I wandered in, under the shadow cast by the red brick tower to the left of the structure, and was winded by the immensity of space that greeted me. The never ending ceiling, the openness of all around me, like a world within a world.

Where the tower must loom there is a giant open space that is given to current modern artists. Every season they convert it, make use of the space for a single exhibition, or rather, a single piece. It has held a giant spider, been used to re-create the ocean, and when I wandered that empty expanse, was used as a post-apolcolyptic bunker. It was as if you were walking through an empty concentration camp, or something from Atwoods, The Handmaiden’s Tale. Cheap chrome spring beds from length to length, a discarded boot as if someone left in a hurry, books upon the beds… but not any old books, books about the end of the world, or about Communism or other forms of civilisation that we don’t experience in the Western World. The light baring down on us was shafted, so it seemed we were locking in some kind of prison without the benefit of escape… It was daunting and awe inspiring and shocking and everything, I think, the artist wanted to be. Tourists spoke in hushed whispers as if they were in a cave hiding, or, possibly, in a sacred forgotten space.

I carried on through the Tate Mod, I viewed some new portraits figuring people with their skin torn off, watching a film in which a man, naked in the bath, hit himself to the point of bruising and bleeding, observed different sculptures that represented movement, it was a type of shock therapy, most, but at the same time there were images that were incredibly thought provoking.

Modern Art is a strange thing to say the least. There are parts of it that inspire the soul, that enable a mind to sour beyond its original capacity, and yet, there are parts of it created simply to disturb a person, to remove them from the serene comfort of their own metality and question their moral being. I don’t like images of torture, I’m adverse to pain for the sake of pain, I don’t see the point in frivolous sexual exploit – especially when cruel, but all these things existed within this building. I was shocked to see certain things, I think… maybe prudishly, which is wrong for someone my age, by all accounts, that art is not about causing shock and pain and forcing someone into an experience they never intended it to be. I personally believe that art is about expression, about desire, it can be about political means, it is about youth and beauty and age and beauty and experience. It does not… it does not, need to hurt the person experiencing it, it should not be a juvenile attempt to prove that one can shock or disturb… that does not make a clever artist, not by any means at all.

So my experience of the Tate Modern was a thought provoking one. I ended up at a lovely restaurant near Waterloo Station on my way back and sat there, eating pasta while contemplating and understanding the things that I’d seen. Later I would take a friend from New Zealand there, she showed little interest in it at all, thinking all of it a lot of reprehensible stupidity, attempt at attention seeking at the least… and on certain things, I agreed with her – however prudent and potentially ‘un-cultured’ that may be. Culture is about time, there is nothing that you can grab hold of. No one can be cultured throughout human existence, its on the precipice of a generation.

So… I had a job and had moved into my new house. The house included one Australian (me), one Iranian, one Spaniard, one Afro-Caribean, one Sussex-girl and one Nigerian… as you could suspect… it all went terribly wrong. There were arguments from the second week, in regard to boyfriend being all to present, use of the kitchen, lack of toilet cleaning, missing toilettrees and stolen milk. Who would clean the garden and why weren’t the bins taken out? I clean more than you? Certain things being smoked in the backyard, monopolisation of the lounge, too much noise at past the hour… and ‘why did you go out with her and didn’t invite me?’… it was all a drama, and it didn’t really stop. I came to the conclusion that my room was the safest place to be, and luckily I had enough space to make it feel like home rather than a prison. I would spend the initial part of my evening hiding out at the lovely pub on the corner – the Old White Lion – that had an indoor fire, old leather couches and a chicken coop out the back, not to mention a wonderful selection of food. Otherwise I’d have a drink with Michelle, a work colleague who soon became a very close friend, in the city.

It was an interesting life-style, maybe I should have moved to avoid the ongoing drama, but I didn’t. I suppose some of the hostilities and ensuing arguments in that house taught me how to act in such circumstance in the future, maybe there was method in my madness, though I didn’t know at the time. I do, however, know that I’ll never live with a group of girls again and unless my daughter rants and raves that she wants to go to an all girls boarding school, I will advise against it. Women are mad, and being one, I think I’ve the grounds to make a comment as such. I don’t regret it all, because within the wealth of drama, there are days I remember in sitting on the lawn drinking and eating cheese and chattering away and listening to old music… when it snowed I was out there dancing in it, when it rained I watched it fall. The reason I moved there was for space, and space I had in our backyard expanse, I made a friend or two and, well, it was certainly an experience.