Tate Modern

Today, as advertised, me and the Beans went off on trip to the Tate Modern gallery with some other local-ish home edders. And ajolly good day it was too, though by the time we got back I was well tired.

With only a modicum of geeing-up of Stringbean we managed to leave the house on time and got to the station nicely in time as well. Got found on the train by one of the group, and after a little while I went off to the loo to find on return that SB, being the sociable creature that she is, had settled her self in with some of the other girls and spent the rest of the journey happily with them. Whilst I chatted to other parents, and kept a rein on BB’s wanderings. So the train journey, and the bus at the end were quite painless really.

Tate Modern is great, I love the building anyway, a great hulk of a building sitting across the Thames from St Paul’s catherdral with it’s great tall chimmney. You’d never build a power station in the middle of a city nowadays. And the conversion to art gallery has been very successfull, . To get to the main entrance you go down this big wide slope, – kids just can’t resist running down it., though the doors there is another great wide sloping concrete floor to the base of the hall, with the vast space of the turbine hall, going right up to the glass roof, it’s really breathtaking, SB was quite gobsmacked by it. I can see shy they say it’s such a challenge for artists who get to do something in there.

Rachel Whitereads ‘ boxes’ (Ok, Embankment), which are there at the moment were interesting , in pictures looking nothing like some much as a child’s constuction frorm sugar cubes, it’s both vast and subtle, bland and complex. They are made from some sort of slightly translucent white plastic, so there is quite an interesting quality to the look of them and the way they respond to the light. And where you first just see blandness and repetition, as you wander amongst them you start to notice more the little details of the boxes, lines, shapes of hand holes etc. The organised arrangement of some and apparent randomness of other, I could have wandered around for ages. SB enjoyed it, mostly I guess for it’s maze like nature, and BB managed to almost get lost in it, until I heard her wailing around the corner.

We also caught the last day of the Rousseau exhibition, which was good, though having a 4 yo and a 1yo in buggy meant I couldn’t really do it justice, and being the last day, and a Sunday meant that it was pretty packed so getting to view pictures easily was awkward at times, and it made it bit difficult to sit and talk with SB about them (or for her to see them). but she certainly did enjoy some of them, though did after while, say that she didn’t want to look at more pictures of animals But by now she was moping a bit becuase we had lost contact for bit with the others, and she wanted to be going around with some of the other kids. She was struck by the Emmanuel Fr?miet sulpture of a Gorrilla abducting woman (as they do) at the beginning as well. Enjoyed it it anyway.

By now SB was wanting bit of break, and I fancied some coffee, so we got drinks (I spilt hot coffee on her ear which went down well…. ) and sat and read couple of Roald Dahl’s Revolting Ryhmes – I love the one about Cinderella where the Prince chops of the heads of the ugly sisters :-), went to the shop for mild amount of retail therapy, then bumped into some of the others so we sat down some more. Well actually, mostly I chased down BB or wandered around with her, as she just wanted to head off in all directions. While SB sat and ate/chatted/played with some of the other childrens so she was happy.

Then off for some more browsing, SB’s favourite piece undoubtably was Anish Kapoor’s Ishi’s Light The inside of the ‘egg’ is dark reddy coloured and reflective. You walk into it and there is some weird optical effect which i’m still pondering which means the surfaceappears to be much closer to you than it is, so you reach out to touch it and it appears to not be there. From outside it can appear that the person sarm has almost gone into the surface. Very odd, not sure if it’s more interesting in it or outside watching others inside it. She was also taken by a piece whose artist/name I’ve forgotten, which had two birds, as if in flight attached to the wall with arrows through them above an almost sketched bit of city building/skyline. We spent bit of time going around with Holly and Steve who had organised the trip and SB quite took to Holly, who was good at getting her to think a bit about the works we were looking at. I found the room linking Monet and Absract Expressionism interesting The rest of the gallery was busy, but not crowded, so it was rather easier here.

Then it soon enough became time to head home , SB excited to be able to go up on the top deck of the bus with some of the others, whilst I was on the lower deck with BB On the train, kids all sat at one end of the carriage and tried to watch Madagascar on Steves laptop, well done that man Most of the rest of the adults sat a little bit further away and had good natter. BB slept all the way pretty much, so I had a nice quiet time as well.

And then we were home. Sadly SB woke up when put in her bed, but once we’d had some tea etc. they both zonked out again.

It was a great trip, though by the end of it I was kanckered, not helped by endlessy chasing after BB. SB had a great time, and as ever loved to make some new friends, she really is such a sociable soul. I too found it good to meet up with some new people, and as most of the kids were a bit older than the usual Muddlepuddle crowd we hang out with it was sort of interesting to see a slighty different dynamic going on, and to see maybe glimpse of SB in few years time. Special thanks I think go to the two older sisters (about 11 I think) who were really good with SB and took her under their wing a bit.
She’ll be wanting to meet them all again I think

I thoroughly recommend the Tate Modern, We don’t really get round to visiting a lot of art galleries it must be said, but I do enjoy it when we do. And I do like the way modern/contemporary art challenges you and makes you think (well soem of it, like any other art, some is boring/rubbish/’waht is the point’ wetc.
A now, much later than intended, I’m off to bed, but I wanted to write this whilst fresh in my mind.

Didn’t take many piccies, but some will appear in the usual place of course in due course.