Is this really art?
Is modern art like Marmite?
I was quite looking forward to my trip to the Tate Modern on a crisp, bright December afternoon. We strode purposefully along the South Bank to our destination - along a busy path upon which we contested for space along with many other mid-Winter perambulators. Actually I wasn't that fussed as modern art is 'not my thing' but my companion was definitely up for it and had persuaded me to have another go at appreciating the finer things in life. As I said I am not a fan of modern art - a term usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of experimentation. Apparently it begins with the heritage of painters like Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec without who the art form would not be possible. Now I could happily spend a day at say the National Portrait gallery perusing the work of these gentlemen but I am a little more circumspect about their heirs.
At the beginning of the last century young rips like Henri Matisse and several other young artists including the pre-cubists Georges Braque, André Derain, Raoul Dufy, Jean Metzinger and Maurice de Vlaminck revolutionised (scandalised/) the Paris art world with "wild", multi-coloured, expressive landscapes and figure paintings that the critics called Fauvism. For example the official explanation of The Dance (la Danse) was that it reflected Matisse's incipient fascination with primitive art: the intense warm colour of the figures against the cool blue-green background and the rhythmical succession of the dancing nudes convey the feelings of emotional liberation and hedonism - or did he just get drunk and roll around in paint and canvas?
So on arriving at the Tate we purchased a couple of tickets for the Alexander Calder exhibition on the 2nd floor - £18 a ticket so it was bound to be good - right? Apparently the gentleman was widely celebrated as the inventor of the 'mobile' as was one of the 'most innovative and influential American artists of the 20th century'. Bound to be good then and after all my experience of the mobile was restricted to the Blue Peter advent calendar consisting of bent coat hangers, tinsel and lots of sticky tape.
In all all we perused plenty of things dangling from the ceiling casting dramatic shadows on plain walls- the models evolved into grander moving affairs casting grander shows. According to the program 'most remarkable of all were his experiments with motion' - at which we looked and looked, stood back and looked some more. In fact the more I looked the more I noticed wire and paper (no sticky tape unfortunately) were in abundance - but nothing was actually shouting at me to grab my attention. Sadly I came away under-awed but undeterred I sought out more modern art in other areas of the Tate with I am afraid a similar results. I recognised the odd Hockney and Warhol which were interesting rather than compelling but on the whole came away with a sense of disappointment and I fear that I will never get nor appreciate the concept of Modern Art.
Still no-one wants to die wondering do they?
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