Upon moving to London, I was immediately overwhelmed by the
amount of options for cultural enrichment, be it theater, music, or fine arts.
First on my list was the Tate Modern, which I’ve never had the chance to visit.
This weekend, I made what will surely be the first of many visits to this
wonderful museum and cultural space. Here are a few impressions and thoughts.
I couldn’t help but look out for
Mark Rothko’s work in the museum, having never actually seen any of his work in
person. It was not long until I found a room to fulfil all my Rothko desires.
The museum has an entire collection of Rothkos, originally commissioned for the
restaurant of The Four Seasons Hotel in New York. After having completed these
pieces of art, Rothko deemed them inappropriate for a restaurant, and gave the
entire collection of paintings to the Tate. Sitting at the centre of the room
in which these paintings have now been placed, one does feel that these
paintings would have been entirely out of place in a commercial establishment.
The room is ample sized, but the dim lights and the enormity of the paintings
achieves an almost claustrophobic effect. Rothko himself stated that the
paintings are meant to evoke a sense of enclosing walls. The strong angular
lines in some of these paintings do call to mind images of doors and windows,
yet the persistent shade of dark burgundies and reds suggest that there is
nothing beyond these windows and doors – they merely hint at a chance of
escape, of a world beyond our own, but ultimately dash these hopes. The time
spent in this room was not nearly enough to fully immerse myself in Rothko’s
work, but it’s a start
One of the most interesting
pieces at the Tate can be found in a slightly less obvious, immersive space.
Lucio Fontana’s Spatial Concept ‘Waiting’ hangs subtly in a corner of a room
entitled Beyond Painting. The surprisingly
simple piece of art is essentially a canvas that has one very neat and precise
slash down the middle. The visual quality of the work is engaging enough, the
slash allowing the canvas to eerily cave in on itself, but the concept behind
the work (or behind the canvas) is what really struck me. By cutting into the
canvas itself, Fontana forces us to question the nature of art itself. The
canvas is often used to represent realities outside of the object itself, while
here Fontana draws our attention to the art object itself. It also compels us
to question the meaning of fine arts, with the slash showing us that there is,
quite literally, nothing behind the canvas. While it’s hard to imagine that
this was Fontana’s purpose in creating this gestural work of art, but as great
pieces of art often do, the work outlives the artist’s intent.
These were only two of the many
wonderful artists whose work is housed at the Tate Modern, and I would
encourage all Londoners to visit this and other museums several times –
appreciating art seems to work so much better when we aren’t attempting to run
through all the rooms of the museum in one go. Take your time, sit down,
reflect, enjoy.
