Tate – Jennifer Michie

May 6, 2013 / 1 Comment

The Weekend

We got up bright and early on Saturday to make the most of the glorious day we had in front of us! Every art exhibition that I have wanted to see lately, we were never able to get tickets for. I love Roy Lichtenstein, I always have and Mr. Michie was not going to let this slip by without taking me.

So off we went to the Tate Modern and what a day it was! We loved the show. I still can’t believe that I got to see Whaam!, in person!!! And, one of my all time favorites, We Rose Up Slowly. It was beautiful, I stood in front of it for ages, just taking it all in. The colors, the scale, the beauty of it.

After the show we stood in the line buying a few postcards and Mr. Michie with his cheeky grin commented on how funny it was that Lichtenstein’s work made comment on mass production and the consumer’s need to buy into mass production and here we were buying massed produced postcards about work that was in part created to comment on mass production. That was his arty farty comment on the day! We still bought the postcards!

We had lunch at The Diner, I got a short stack of pancakes, that were deliciousi-oso! Mr. Michie got an order of chili cheese fries. We wandered into Liberty’s as there was some fabric I wanted to see in person. On the way out we walked through the jewellery department, and we spotted a stunning ring, but we clearly didn’t look like two people who could buy jewellery there as the two sales associates wouldn’t even speak to us. It is always amusing to be judged. Judged by someone who knows nothing about you and has already formed this opinion of you in their mind.

We left there, strolled into Convent Garden and ended up going to Wahaca for an early Cinco de Mayo feast and ate cactus tacos and chicken tinga and frijoles and spicy slaw, it was wonderful as always. It was the perfect day, out with my baby, just enjoying where the wind blew us.

February 19, 2011 / 0 Comments

A Trip to the Tate

I had the great fortune of leaving the cupboard for a little while on Wednesday and I got to accompany an Art trip to the Tate. It was a treat walking around with the students, getting to sketch some things in my sketchbook and taking as many photographs as I could.

I haven’t been to the Tate in quite awhile. Mr. Michie went on a school trip before Christmas and he inspired me to want to go again after such a long absence. However, they were hanging so many things that a lot of the rooms were closed, so I didn’t get a chance to see as much as I had hoped.

One piece I did see was by the conceptual artist Cerith Wyn Evans. Who had a stunning, ballroom size Venetian chandelier hanging in a room; that lit up very slowly and once warmed up the lights would flash on and off. It was so beautiful and yet surreal to see in white this room, the bold colours of the chandelier’s droplets and flowers were all that stood out, against the blinding light when the bulbs reached their highest power.

My minor in College,was Arts Management and one of the courses I took was a gallery class. One area we focused on, was how do people use the space they are in and interact with the space they are in. I always think back to that class as I watch people in a gallery/museum.

There was no way around this chandelier it was so wide and hung so low it almost touched the floor. You couldn’t miss it. Yet, I stood against a wall and watched people breeze past it, give it a wide berth, as if there was nothing of importance to see, or, they would quickly glance at it and move along. Maybe its sheer size unnerved people, they felt it was too big to interact with, it isn’t as “simple” as standing in front of a painting on a wall. Who knows? It was just something that fascinated me.

I had a lovely day out and I think the students did as well, a lot of good ideas for their exam theme of “Similarities & Differences”. I just thought I would share a few of my favourite images from the day with you:

Theodore Von Holst, The Fairy Lovers, about 1840
Michael Ayrton, The Temptation of St. Anthony, 1942-3
Henry Fuseli, Titania and Bottom, about 1790
William Blake, The Book of Thel pl. 7, probably 1796
John Linnell, The Last Load, 1853
Cerith Wyn Evans, Chandelier

I picked up these two postcards as my treat. I thought they offered an interesting perspective on “Similarities & Differences”, so I am just going to pocket them away as an idea for a student in need:

{Self Portrait with Fried Eggs, Sarah Lucas, 1996 (left) Honeymoon Nude, John Currin, 1998 (right)}

October 29, 2010 / 0 Comments

Gauguin

I went to see the Gauguin exhibit today at the Tate Modern, it was a wonderful day! When we first entered the Tate we headed off to see Ai Weiwei’s Sunflower commission. It is composed of millions of porcelain sunflower seeds that are all spread out on the floor, it was unbelievable how real they all looked. I was saddened though, that you can no longer walk on them.

The Gauguin exhibit was interesting, I saw pieces of his work that I was never aware that he created. For instance, a series of wood carved statues that were so intricately designed, their Tahitian influence so apparent in their almost totem pole shape, they were beautiful.

There was a lot of people there, a little too much for my liking, all pushing and shoving, which is something that I have never understood. I felt they were there to simply say they had been, not to actually take it in and enjoy it.

After stopping for a spot of cake and tea, we headed over to St. Martin’s crypt to see next year’s contenders for the plinth in Trafalgar Square. You can vote on your favourite, these were my two:

It was a wonderful day out, in the pleasure of good company and an absolute luxury to be in 1/2 term, spending a usual working day, walking around and soaking up the Tate.

October 15, 2010 / 0 Comments

The Tate

This week, Mr. Michie visited the Tate Britain with his media students. The museum lover that I am, I have to admit, sacrilege as this is to say, that the Tate just doesn’t seem to really do it for me, and maybe that is because I always seemed to end up in the Turner room with my classmates studying his pieces and I slowly came to hate going there, being stuck in that room.

And maybe, because the John Singer Sargent that I love and used to visit often, “Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose”, suddenly, never seemed to be up when I went, it started to become this elusive painting, I was always hunting for.

I do love going to the Tate Modern however. I love that an old power station instead of being torn down was used to create a space in which people can walk around, interact with art, or sit in a chair, look at an art book and watch the Thames float by.

But, after Mr. Michie’s adventure out on Thursday, I am starting to slowly love the Tate again, if only for this:

I will be going to visit the Gauguin exhibition at the Tate Modern in a few weeks and I am going to try to squeeze in the going to the Tate as well and I will be looking around it again with fresh eyes, as Humphrey Bogart once said, “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

(Image taken by Mr. Michie, Artwork by Bob & Roberta Smith, I was Hansel in the School Play, 2008)