Category Archives: Tate Modern

Spring Day at Southbank and the Tate Modern

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I’m absolutely delighting in this lovely weather we are having at the moment. I met Nate, Caro, Gaspar and Cesar (he was sleeping most of it) for brunch at Giraffe at Southbank before taking a long stroll all the way to the Tate Modern to check out Ai Weiwei’s Sunflower Seeds.

Shame the Seeds are now cordoned off from the public (actually it was cordoned off within 48 hours!) It used to be open but too many people were stealing the little Seeds (apparently a single seed sold for £28 on ebay) and I also read somewhere the porcelain replicas were slightly poisonous. It was an impressive sea of seeds to behold!

This is something you also don’t see everyday, one of the London Eye capsules being towed around on the back of a boat!

Mirela visit London

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It has been a long time since I’ve last seen Mirela – gosh it must have been Madrid in June last year and that was only a very fleeting visit. Since then she’s left Madrid, gone to work at a summer tennis camp in the States and then gone back to settle back home in Greece (moving in with her boyfriend to the new apartment that her parents built her) so a lot has happened. Further I don’t think she’s visited London since November 2008.

Although February is probably not the best time for someone who loves the sun and warmth to visit London at least the weather for her this past weekend has been fairly lovely. Especially on Friday when I took the day off from work to spend with her traipsing around London.

In every conversation that we’ve had since she booked tickets to come visit London the very first thing that comes up is Crispy Duck. Her flight was delayed coming in on Thursday night so we didn’t end up leaving Heathrow Airport until just before 9pm. We were both absolutely starving by then so we made our first stop one of my favourite local Chinese restaurants: New Fortune Cookie! We didn’t even bother stopping at home to drop off any luggage – lucky she packed relatively lightly. I love the staff at New Fortune Cookie. I don’t know if they recognise me, I do get take-away and eat-in quite often, but they are always ready to greet me with a friendly smile and friendly service. I also don’t know if they remember Mirela visiting last time and her total obsession with the hoisin sauce they serve with the crispy duck. It was rather amusing! The crispy duck went down an absolutely treat that’s for sure.

This weekend with Mirela wasn’t planned at all which is very unlike me as most people know! But because I also had to consider Sabrina’s plans, one of Mirela’s close uni friends, it was a bit hard to organise anything such as tickets to an event or even to organise drinks. But I think it worked out okay.

As I mentioned Friday weather was absolutely lovely. We started off with coffee for Mirela from Starbucks before walking down Kensington Church Street to get to Giraffe for brunch. Mmmm … love their English Breakfast. Even the vegetarian version, which is what Mirela had, isn’t too bad.

After brunch we headed up the Babylon Roof Gardens for a peak, a quick drop by some of the shops and then it was off to the Tate Modern to meet up with Fabrizio, another of Mirela’s Uni mates. Interestingly this guy never works and has spent most of his 30+ years at school! He has recently decided that he wants to move to Spain somewhere. To do goodness knows what but hey – he seems happy.

The current installation in the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall is Miroslaw Balka’s giant grey steel box which is in essence a vast black dark chamber. Its supposed to represent aspects of Polish history (the artist is Polish). Supposedly the experience creates a range of “sensory and emotional experiences … provoking feelings of apprehension, excitement or intrigue.” Er … it was literally a big box (think huge container van) with no lights on inside. We walked up to it, into it, fumbled around, got to the back and then walked out again. Mirela, who can cannily imitate a barking dog, entertained us by displaying her skills and as a result a bunch of teenage girls ran screaming out! Anyway, if a big vast black box sounds like you’re kind of thing you have until 5 April to visit.

Another meal that Mirela was keen to have was sushi. It was kind of awkward timing at 3pm by the time we ate – we returned to HiSushi which was okay but as they were nearly closing down we were pretty much rushed to order our food.

After heading back to my place for a bit of a rest, we’d been walking for quite a few hours by then so we were rather weary!, we headed over to Sabrina’s house for a night out in South Kensington. After a couple of hours mucking around at Sabrina’s we stopped at Carluccio’s for dinner, which as usual even at 10 pm was heaving (we had to wait about 20 minutes for a table”), and then headed to Vendome for some drinks: 3 drinks for £30 – ouch!

Vendome was more bar than club – its quite a small venue with plenty of seating around – so it was quite relaxed but it was filled by what I imagine to be a typical South Kensington crowd. Music was not too bad but quite mainstream. We managed to dance the night away but with the bar closing at 1am it was an earlier end to the night than I was expected. As it turned out it nearly took me two hours to get home anyway – it didn’t help that I was quite a little bit tipsy …

On Saturday we all woke up a little worse for wear – we only had three drinks each at Vendome! But we had planned on a pretty quiet day of shopping at Westfield so it wasn’t supposed to be a demanding day. We made the mistake of trying to lunch at Westfield right in the middle of lunch time. Sabrina was craving Nando’s but the line for it was massive. To be fair the line for most other places was the same. We must have waited nearly an hour – I didn’t think we’d make it we were so hungry!

Surprisingly we actually lasted the whole day in Westfield though Mirela did have a few naps:

Ha ha. Just kidding! We did also spend quite a bit of time admiring the hot guys at Hollister – couldn’t believe there was a queue to even get into that store!

Sabrina then cooked us some dinner at her home:

On Sunday all we had time for was to say goodbye to Mirela. A quick visit but one that we appreciated. Its only now that she’s gone that I’ve realised how much I’ve missed her!

The stuff of nightmares – A Giant Spider

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It has been raining for years now, not a day, not an hour without rain. This continual water has had a strange effect on urban sculptures. They have started to grow like giant tropical plants, and become even more monumental. To stop this growth it has been decided to store them inside, among hundreds of bunk beds which, night and day, receive refuges from the rain … Turbine Hall/2058/London …

I must admit when I heard about the latest installation in the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern I had focused simply on the spider. In fact that very night after having seen the pic in the newspaper I proceeded to have one of the most disturbing dreams I’ve had in a while involving a giant spider web and lots of death. *Shudder* So, I was a little concerned that going to the Tate Modern yesterday was going to give me further nightmares. In fact I did have a nightmare which involved a wraith which attacked me and was scary enough to scare me awake! 🙁

The current Turbine Hall insallation may seem a little familiar. At a basic level Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster’s “TH.2058” involves 200 metal bunk beds laid out in rows all with books basically relating to a city under attack or science fiction novels featuring some sort of impending apocalypse. The beds conveying the sense of the shelter where people are hiding.

As the italicised writing (written at the “entrance” to the installation) at the beginning of this post indicates whilst in this shelter it has been raining for what seems like forever and this has caused certain sculptures to grow by 25% .. hence the familiarity as you are presented with recycled and enlarged versions of Louise Bourgeois’s spider, Alexander Calder’s flamingo and Claes Oldenburg’s oversized apple core.

I’m not quite sure what to make of this piece of art as I’ve read it has been critically panned with a lot of reviewers criticising it for not having much originality nor depth. Irrespective I’m sure it will continue to draw hordes of visitors whether they appreciate it or not.

But is it art?

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Well, whilst I was visiting the Bankside Frost Fair it was an opportunity to step in to the Tate Modern to check out Doris Salcedo’s Shibboleth which is basically a crack in the floor of the Turbine Hall. There is heaps of inner meaning to it I’m sure but its more fascinating to try and work out just exactly how she has produced the crack.

You can check out the website of the Tate Modern if you’re interested.

A day around the Thames

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So sometimes you have to take the time to explore your own local neighbourhood. London is a pretty big neighbourhood and its been a long time since I’ve walked along the Thames so after a mammoth feast at yum-cha I thought it would be a good idea to join my bro for a bit of a walk.

The great thing about London is that you can walk practically anywhere very easily. Its pretty much flat all around and you are guaranteed to see something interesting in your travels, especially around South Bank where there is always something going on.

For example, until Feb next year (2007 – not long to go now!) Gorillaz co-creator Jamie Hewlett has a set of amazing murals up on display around the Royal Festival Hall. Jamie actually won the ‘Designer of the Year Award’ for his work in animating and creating the Gorillaz’s alter-egos. I especially liked this mural where in the upper right corner there is the Grim Reaper but he looks like he is just hovering in the background or is being seen in a reflection.

Another thing that might take your fancy is the current Unilever Series exhibition by Carsten Höller, titled Test Site, at the Tate Modern which consists of five slides in the Turbine Hall. The work is a “playground for the body and the brain”.

Although tickets for the slides are free they are timed and only available on the day. And as everyone who knows about the slides wants to slide down them you aren’t guaranteed a ticket if you arrive late in the day. If you can’t get on to the slides on Levels 3-5 slides I think the one on Level 2 is available on an as comes basis – but who really wants to slide down that when you’ve got gigantic ones you can get on to!

Apparently Höller has undertaken other projects including a machine that hoists the user through the air (Flying Machine) and a room full of Frisbees (imaginatively titled the Frisbee House) so this is not his first attempt at crazy. Just kidding! When I said crazy I really meant fun. We arrived too late to consider trying to get a ticket but to be honest I was more worried about getting to the end of the slide and then flying off to who knows where in my helmet and burlap sack! What a piece of comedy that would have been.

Leaving South Bank we somehow found ourselves near St Paul’s Cathedral where there was a very strange and unexpected Fun Fare happening. It felt a bit eerie to be honest but people seemed to be enjoying themselves!