The Tates Modern and Britain

Sketches of Henry Moore Sculptures

Went up to London on the train for a Saturday visit. I took the Brompton and rode round the galleries on it which was an adventure in itself. I visited Tate Modern which was OK. I didn’t really enjoy it that much. It was very busy and full of parties of French children taking photographs of the art work with their mobile phones. In fact there was a lot of photography going on with everything from mobile phones to Nikon SLRs. I found this rather off putting somehow. It made the art tourism aspect of the place very apparent. I found a few things I liked in the gaps of the big galleries. I was particularly looking for  the work of Frederic Bruly Bouabre which I had read about and I enjoyed the collection of his little images. I also enjoyed the Exquisite Corpse etchings by the Chapman brothers. It was difficult to work out how many hands had been at the plates but there was an interesting range of marks and drawing manners in the images. There were some drypoints by Louise Bourgeois too.

I cycled round to Intaglio Printmakers just round the corner. A very fine shop indeed, packed with stuff, jars and bottles and plates and cutters and everything for the printmaker. I had a good browse round that and got a fine Italian etching needle and some oil based printing ink for relief printing.

Then I rode over to Tate Britain and spent an hour or so going round the Henry Moore show. They had a difficult task on their hands trying to sell the idea of Moore as being the radical artist throughout his life as it is so difficult to see past the ubiquity and familiarity of his work to what it might have looked like to people before the war. I enjoyed the show because I sort of like Moore. I like his drawings and some of the sculptures. My favourties are the big plaster and string piece from 1951 and some of the small lead pieces and the final elm carvings were pretty impressive. They make the point that his post war warriors and so on had a different meaning in Holland and Germany where they became war memorials. The show stops before the sixties really get going when he really diluted his reputation through repetition. Interesting show though. He was quite a celebrtity artist in his way but the way he was a celebrity is very different to the current model. He was a celebrity in a cardigan.

It was a bit of a hack on the bike up to Gimpel Fils to see Tom and his Pattern Completion project and a two hour presentation on the thinking behind the work. The neuro-science was interesting though I am not sure how much of it comes through in the work itself.