Across the Millennium Bridge
Yeah, the famous one from Harry Potter--right across the Thames is a monstrous industrial edifice known as the Tate Modern. The cabin fever wasn't quite dissipated, so I went out in the middle of the afternoon to check out those WWI art pieces in their natural habitat--a museum.
It was a cool, cloudy day (like most here), and again I enjoyed pretending I was a local by wearing slacks and reading the Evening Standard on the tube. St. Paul's blended into the sky, and the river looked like magnesium. There weren't nearly as many entertainers as in the evenings outside the Globe (which is right next door), but one guy was definitely singing the Beatles. I noticed those same locks I saw on the Seine on the Millennium Bridge declaring tourists' love--much cooler here, since it's not the cliche city of love, but the city of enchantment and grunge and music and morbidity and literature...stronger stuff, I think.
Modernity
After the Pompidou and BYU museum of art, I again felt in my element being among all the sculpture, shredded clothes, and paint-splattered canvas. It's not that the abstract really speaks to me so much as it's impressive what they do. Suspending a pyramid on its point? Re-sculpting Venus with a sardonic face? Those things are just cool. I don't know much about modern art, but what I do know is that most of them were angry, tortured by an apparent absence of God, and trying to express the world as truthfully as they could.
My favorite piece was a series of photographs taken in the 80s. The photographer Bruce Davidson completed a hard-core exercise regimen to enable him to pick up heavy camera equipment and run--his goal was to document people riding the New York Subway. Brilliant? Not necessarily. One picture definitely depicts a man held up at gunpoint by a (fellow?) gang member, and I couldn't help but think of Paul Bettany's line, "John, you watched a mugging. That's weird." (A Beautiful Mind) The pictures were dark and crisscrossed with foggy graffiti on the windows, sometimes obscuring the passengers altogether. No one was smiling. They looked out over the city, a gorgeous skyline, with no enthusiasm. Black, white, old, young, poor, rich, lovers and alone, they all converged on the public transportation and assumed the same expression. It was fascinating to watch.
Sister Seely asked what I thought. She said that the Modern Art Museum in New York is unlike anything we'd ever experience in Europe--while Gaugin and Dali are scattered and shared among all the museums, New York has claim to guys like Pollock and Warhol. Modern art was truly grasped by the Americans, even though modern literature is claimed by England. But post-modernism is ours as well. What will happen next? Maybe it's written in the artist-oracles--or maybe they're only clinging to what's past. Maybe the true art is not considered so by the establishment. What happens then?
Yeah, the famous one from Harry Potter--right across the Thames is a monstrous industrial edifice known as the Tate Modern. The cabin fever wasn't quite dissipated, so I went out in the middle of the afternoon to check out those WWI art pieces in their natural habitat--a museum.
It was a cool, cloudy day (like most here), and again I enjoyed pretending I was a local by wearing slacks and reading the Evening Standard on the tube. St. Paul's blended into the sky, and the river looked like magnesium. There weren't nearly as many entertainers as in the evenings outside the Globe (which is right next door), but one guy was definitely singing the Beatles. I noticed those same locks I saw on the Seine on the Millennium Bridge declaring tourists' love--much cooler here, since it's not the cliche city of love, but the city of enchantment and grunge and music and morbidity and literature...stronger stuff, I think.
Modernity
After the Pompidou and BYU museum of art, I again felt in my element being among all the sculpture, shredded clothes, and paint-splattered canvas. It's not that the abstract really speaks to me so much as it's impressive what they do. Suspending a pyramid on its point? Re-sculpting Venus with a sardonic face? Those things are just cool. I don't know much about modern art, but what I do know is that most of them were angry, tortured by an apparent absence of God, and trying to express the world as truthfully as they could.
My favorite piece was a series of photographs taken in the 80s. The photographer Bruce Davidson completed a hard-core exercise regimen to enable him to pick up heavy camera equipment and run--his goal was to document people riding the New York Subway. Brilliant? Not necessarily. One picture definitely depicts a man held up at gunpoint by a (fellow?) gang member, and I couldn't help but think of Paul Bettany's line, "John, you watched a mugging. That's weird." (A Beautiful Mind) The pictures were dark and crisscrossed with foggy graffiti on the windows, sometimes obscuring the passengers altogether. No one was smiling. They looked out over the city, a gorgeous skyline, with no enthusiasm. Black, white, old, young, poor, rich, lovers and alone, they all converged on the public transportation and assumed the same expression. It was fascinating to watch.
Sister Seely asked what I thought. She said that the Modern Art Museum in New York is unlike anything we'd ever experience in Europe--while Gaugin and Dali are scattered and shared among all the museums, New York has claim to guys like Pollock and Warhol. Modern art was truly grasped by the Americans, even though modern literature is claimed by England. But post-modernism is ours as well. What will happen next? Maybe it's written in the artist-oracles--or maybe they're only clinging to what's past. Maybe the true art is not considered so by the establishment. What happens then?
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