Soaking up the Art Culture

Went to the Tate Modern yesterday to view the new Pop Life: Art in a Material World exhibit. I was so excited! My aunt has a membership so I didn't have to pay to get into the exhibit. Most exhibits at the Tate are free but their feature exhibits cost money. It was honestly pretty crazy. I'm not sure I knew what I was getting into with Pop Art cause I didn't really know what Pop Art meant. I now know it refers to Popular or commercial art, similar to the way Pop Music refers to Popular or commercial music. So basically, the Pop Art movement is very modern, beginning with Mr. Andy Warhol in the late 50s and carrying on to now. There were four rooms devoted to Mr. Warhol, his stuff is insane. I really like it. I think my favourite was the Four Multicoloured Marilyns he did in the 60s. And I did not know he was shot by some woman, crazy! The other rooms were dedicated to a variety of pop artists and Pop Art in general. One room was devoted to Keith Haring, he is amazing. His art is everywhere and I had no idea it was all by one artist. I thought it was just an art style. Below is a pic of one of him and some of his pieces, he's even wearing one of his tshirts.

I must mention that a lot of Pop Art is what I, as an uncultured non-art-lover would refer to as 'porn'. That's because, to me, large close up shots of penetration and ejaculation and cunnilingus and masturbation is 'porn'. And when these images are featured in magazines, as many of them were in the exhibit, that definitely qualifies as 'porn' in my books. As do images of one woman and several men engaged in various acts. The rooms containing these pieces all had warnings as you enter saying that there was sexual content and that you needed to be 18+ to enter and they had staff at the entrance to watch out. One guy asked me if I was over 18 and then looked skeptical when I said yes (This was probably due to my gasp of horror/shock when I saw the first massive image in that particular room was an extreme close up of something that does not need to be viewed extremely close up, much less blown up and hung on a wall), he only relaxed when I offered to show him ID. That was the room for an artist with the last name Koon, just a heads up for any of you who might one day go see an exhibit featuring his work, 'Graphic' does not even begin to describe his images. One of these magical rooms in the exhibit was devoted to an artist (Andrea something) who's piece was a video of her (the artist) having sex with a collector. Apparently she contacted a bunch of galleries and asked them to get a list of collectors who would pay an undisclosed amount to have the privilege of getting a video of her having sex with them to add to their collection.....yep, that's porn to me. So the room just had the explanation of the piece and then the video shot from one mounted camera using existing lighting. There were tons of people standing around watching but I read the description and thought that maybe I misunderstood, watched the video for about 10 seconds and realized I understood perfectly and then left the room. The room right after the one with the video was one that had only one 'piece': a life-sized fake (God, I hope it was fake and not stuffed) dead horse sprawled on the ground with a wooden post stabbed in its flank that had a sign stuck to it that read 'Iniri' or 'Ingiri', something like that. It was by far the most disturbing thing I have seen in a long time. I wanted to vomit. But I guess that's what some art does to you. What boggles my mind is that there were some people standing around observing it. I just got the hell out of that room before my stomach could reject my lunch.

So I've noted my favourite piece, my least favourite piece, but the craziest piece was in a room dedicated to the young British artists who brought Pop Art to Britain, having been influenced by the Americans. I forget the name of the piece but on the wall, there were two identical squares made up of multicoloured polka dots. Beneath each of these squares was an identical chair and on the chair were two identical twin red-headed girls wearing identical outfits, right down to the shoes and bags and reading the same book. Did I mention these were ACTUAL PEOPLE. That's right, these two, live girls, were part of the exhibit, just sitting there reading and answering the occasional question. It was nuts!!! I wanted to ask if they moved around with the exhibit and if they went to school or how they knew the artist but I was kind of creeped out by the whole thing. And you're not allowed to take photographs so I'm not sure you're supposed to talk to the pieces either. Some people asked questions but I couldn't tell if they were actually answering the questions, I didn't want to get too close. So weird.

Pics below of Keith Haring and his work and also some pics I took outside the Tate Modern. Absolutely breathtaking view.

The view from the boardwalk thing outside the Tate Modern .



Close up.


The path leading to the Tate from the little boardwalk area.





This is a foot bridge that my uncle suggested I take to go to St. Paul's Cathedral after the Tate. I then had to explain my bridge phobia to him. When I actually saw the bridge I laughed out loud. There is no way in hell I would walk across that thing. Even if this side of the river was on fire, I would just jump in the water and try to swim as opposed to walking over that death-trap.


D-e-a-t-h-t-r-a-p



Keith Haring and some of his work, also wearing some of his work.


One of my favourite Keith Haring pieces.