I first planned to skip Tate Modern because I had chalked myself as someone who doesn’t understand contemporary art. The conclusion was born after visiting a few exhibitions in Melbourne NGV and not getting why some of the things displayed there categorize as art – I know this makes me sound absolutely ignorant.
But then I heard about Tracey Emin‘s My Bed and wanted to see it for myself.
Lubaina Himid
We started with the currently featured Lubaina Himid exhibition.
A stage for considering the personal and the political, Lubaina Himid’s powerful and poetic work has made her an influential figure in contemporary art. Himid has explored and expanded the possibilities of painting and storytelling, drawing attention to invisible aspects of history and extraordinary moments of everyday life.
She says:
The audience member is in the paintings… The experience should be similar to entering a room and deciding what you will do and how you will react and interact.
Himid asks us to consider how the built environment, history, personal relationships, and conflict shape our lives. In the leaflet, they are presented alongside texts by the curators and quotes from the artist. Together, they are envisioned as starting points for conversation, for taking action, and for making changes.
It didn’t take long for me to fall in love with Lubaina’s art; before leaving the paid exhibition, we got two replicas of her paintings (each of them now displayed in our studies).
A pit stop at the Tate Modern Cafe
Our next stop was the cafe. I thought it would be a challenge to get seats here. On the contrary, we were seated almost immediately; in a bar seating area overlooking the Thames River. We ordered the reasonably priced drinks and shared a bowl of corn kernels while enjoying one of the best views of London.
Then we moved on to the main collections.
OMG, Tate Modern is fantastic!
Admittedly, in the main gallery, there were also art that made me think, “why?“; like a display of giant teeth. Also, I didn’t get to see Tracey Emin‘s My Bed. But there were so many thought-provoking arts on display in Tate Modern that it felt like a treat to get lost in the maze of galleries.
Tate Modern gift shop is not to be skipped!
Our last stop was the gift shop.
I see a museum or gallery gift shop as equally important as the exhibition because nothing makes one feel doubly cultured as buying a small fridge magnet replicating the art seen for the first (and last) time only an hour earlier. Yes, I love gift shops, no surprise there. But Tate Modern gift shop was something else. It was huge, filled with curated collections, half of which I wanted to get for myself. I ended up getting a pair of Yayoi Kusuma socks and a stack of postcards. Fafa also got me beautiful birthday earrings from there.
We only covered a small portion of Tate Modern, but that was enough for me to carry on feeling pretty artsy for years to come.
Ps. I realized it was nicer to be in an art gallery on a weekday because it was significantly less crowded; maybe that’s a trick to enjoy contemporary art in your own city.
