Art Day with a splash of Thames

St. Paul's and skyline from the Millennium Bridge

I actually work up early this morning!  I got up, picked up the room, and planned my day.  I had an orange for breakfast and went on my way.  First to Starbucks, where I wanted to get a latte.  But their menu is different here, so I got an iced latte instead.  Then to Victoria Station (30p to use the impeccably clean toilets) and the tube to the Tate British museum.  The Tate British just used to be the Tate museum for contemporary art, but when they built the new Tate in 2000, they made the old Tate for English artists.  I love the old Tate because it has a lovely collection of Pre-Raphaelite artists.  I decided to take a free tour, but quickly realized that it wasn't my cup of tea.  While looking at a series of paintings about the novel, our guide told the story of an 19th century novel, "Pamela," (written by a man) about a housekeeper for a wealthy man.  The man takes a fancy to her, dresses up like a woman, gets in her bed, and tries to rape her.  (Well, the guide didn't put it that way.)  She refuses, and the man realizes that she is "virtuous," and then woos her to be his wife.  His family objects, and she has to beg them to accept her into the family.  It ends in a wedding.  "A Triumph of Virtue!" The guide exclaimed.  "Yeah, " I answered.  "Or the triumph of a brute."  It's not that I don't understand this story and its culture in historical terms.  But to tell the story in the 21st century without a hint of irony or historical perspective was a bit much for me.  I forged out on my own.

Here are a couple of paintings I liked from the 16th century:

Two women who were supposedly born on the same day, married

 on the same day, and gave birth on the same day

I just liked her gumption

And to my disappointment, the Pre-Raphaelite room was undergoing revision.

After looking at the Blakes, which were very mysterious, compounded so by the very dark room they were showcased in, I left the museum and made my way to the Thames River.

There was a water taxi from the old Tate to the new via the Thames, so I decided to wait for it to arrive.  I had a nice little relaxation in the sun for twenty minutes waiting for the boat to come.

Ever since going on the Chicago architecture boat tour, I have always tried to see cities from their bodies of water.  Cleveland from the Cuyahoga River and Lake Erie, Toronto from Lake Ontario.  A city looks entirely different from its bodies of water.  I loved taking this boat ride and seeing some of London's landmarks from the river:

Once departing near the Globe Theater on the south bank of the Thames, I was hungry and thirsty.  I walked a bit and smelled barbecue.  And I succumbed to going to another restaurant for a pulled pork sandwich and coleslaw.  It was too expensive but I was hungry and tired.  Then a walk along the Thames to the new Tate.  On the way, a bird watching society had set up telescopes on the river promenade so you could look at two Peregrine falcons that live on the side of the new Tate building.  I got a kick out of that.  You know how I love urban wildlife sightings.

The new Tate is cavernous-- build inside of some kind of old factory.  I don't know why they make these contemporary art museums so cavernous-- I hate the Pompidou in Paris, too.

The new Tate was filled with people-- more than I expected.  But I did enjoy the exhibits, especially the somber, claustrophobic Rothko room,
and a four-screen video display that was really about how we construct the stories of our lives, but it featured an American Iraqi war vet recounting stories, while actors portrayed those stories, and all the while we saw the actors auditioning to portray those stories.  It was fascinating.  You could only see two screens at a time, so you had to keep getting up and crossing the room to see the other points of view.  There was also an interesting exhibit of Soviet propaganda posters.














I crossed the Millennium  bridge over the Thames and wanted to see St. Paul's Cathedral, but it was £16.50 to get in and I decided I didn't want to pay $25 to see a church.  So I took the tube home to get ready for the VASTA Convention opening reception.

This poster asks us all to fight fascism.  I guess I was partial to women in red today.