My previous missive described how Denise and I swapped homes with friends from Harpenden, England. Harpenden is just twenty or twenty-five minutes, by train, from London. This allowed us to visit London regularly. We would go there, make surprised exclamations about how expensive everything was, and then take the train back to Harpenden.
Of course London has more to offer than just absurdly high prices. Some of the world’s best museums are there, and they offer free admission. And so does Tate Modern.
“Hey!” shout fans of Tate Modern. “That was uncalled for!”
Maybe so, but hear me out.
When the Tate opened in 2000 “modern art” referred to 20th-century art movements such as Cubism, Surrealism, and Abstract Expressionism. It now seems to encompass all contemporary art. “Contemporary art” includes movies, although I suppose the artists would rather I say “films,” or maybe “video.” Tate Modern includes lots of little dark rooms where “art films” play on a continuous loop.
The movies tend to feature the artist silently standing in a shadowy doorway, or by a window, or maybe sitting on a chair. Possibly there is more to these movies than that, but we will never know for sure. Nobody has ever had the patience to watch one for more than a few seconds.
They say “Brevity is the soul of wit.” That is the problem with these video artists. They take an emotionally laden image, and they beat the soul out of it. It is as though someone saw Edward Hopper’s The Nighthawks and said, “Let’s make that a film. Let’s watch as one guy smokes, another drinks, and the lady continues staring at whatever is in her hand.” The haunting portrait of urban loneliness becomes a pretentious bore.
The Tate Modern includes more than abysmal movies. It also includes bad paintings . . .
and absurd sculptures.
“Now you have gone too far!” shout people who love contemporary art, or giant spiders. “You are being unfair!”
Probably so. I think the visual arts are like music. We look back on an era and we think, “They just don’t make music like they did when I was young.” That’s because we have forgotten all the absolute crap that we enjoyed, back when we were easily impressed by anything pretending to be avant-garde. We unfairly compare the very best of yesteryear, the stuff that withstood the test of time, to today’s one-hit wonders, the fluff that, like “Billy, Don’t Be a Hero” or “Disco Duck,” will quickly be forgotten.
Which is to say, Tate Modern mostly is “Disco Duck,” but there almost certainly was a “Hey Jude” that I overlooked, or failed to appreciate.
By all means, go to Tate Modern. You will find it well worth the price of admission.
Especially if you like giant spiders.