Friday, June 22, 2012
Tate Britain has a refurb
Off to Tate Britain - the one on Millbank - the other day to see a display of early still lifes, to find that the poor old Tate is in the throws of a major reorganisation.
As far as I could see, everything prior to around 1900, a span of maybe 300 years, is now confined to a single badly overcrowded room. Some pictures hung two up which makes the top one a bit hard to view. A good chunk of the place is closed. The remaining chunk is given over to beautifully displayed modern works - in most of which I had little interest and and some of which do not strike me as fit for a national collection of a serious country. OK, so the trustees have a duty to showcase what is being done now, but they might retain a sense of proportion and some respect for the efforts of previous generations, instead of displacing a whole lot of what were national treasures in favour of conceptual, installation and performance art. Triumphs of ego over art. The central hall, the rather grand one with pillars, is cluttered up with all kinds of odd stuff, including a large screen on which I saw moving pictures of combine harvesters. What on earth were they doing there?
The one bit of modern which caught my eye was a rather splendid curved mirror, maybe four feet in diameter, in which one saw the room behind, nicely distorted and upside down. The image moved around in an intriguing way as one moved around in front of it. A much more sensible and attractive affair than the much larger mirror which was stuck up next to the Serpentine last time I was there. The one by the chap who brings us the olympic tower, the picture of which I mistook for an April Fool joke from the 'Evening Standard'. Not only a large mirror but also a rather ugly one, at least to my eye. Other eyes were clearly more taken, if not taken in.
The still lifes were small in number but large in interest. Not least because I had forgotten that still life is another way of saying dead life, not something that has always been thought of as an appropriate subject for a picture. I liked the stuff by Edware Collier best, from the Netherlands despite his apparently English name. It seems that as the Netherlands declined from their glory days, a number of their painters came over here to try their luck, bringing the art with them. His letter racks were good fun. Perhaps, one day, the Tate will mount a more ambitious exhibition.
Followed up by a trip up to Tachbrook Street to check that the cheese shop was still there, which it was, as is the web site http://www.ripponcheese.com/. Nice drop of young emmenthal even if it did not come off a wheel - not so keen on the mature stuff. But, sadly, no Swaledale and had to settle for something called Trelawny instead. A fine cheese I dare say, but not really my sort of thing. Perhaps a bit young for me. Maybe they will patch things up with the Swaledale people (http://www.swaledalecheese.co.uk/) at some point and restock what I think is known as Swaledale traditional.
Back through Victoria Station where I was interested to find that W H Smiths had installed DIY checkout machines, very like those in our own little Waitrose at Epsom, except that they had been finished in black, rather than the paler shades favoured by the Waitrose décor people. It struck me as a rather cumbersome way to stump up the three or four quid needed to pay for one's Economist. Nostalgia induced for the days when Smiths thought to place large plastic buckets at the exits, into which one just chucked the three or four quid, under the eye of the watchful African-British security guard. Presumably they decided that the Caucasian-British fancy newspaper buying public were far too dishonest for such a simple scheme to work. In any event, using the DIY checkout I managed to get charged twice for the one copy of the Economist and had to wait while a helpful Subcontinental-British assistant manager went through his drill on his special workstation. Still managed to catch the next train though, so no damage done.
Back home to celebrate a record breaking bag, at that point at 55 hours on and going strong, running out eventually at 76.4 hours. Chose a bottle of 2008 Gervrey Chambertin (ex Waitrose) for the occasion and very nice it was too. Oddly enough with an element to the palette which reminded me strongly of our own sloe gin.
Perhaps 30p cheaper than the bottle of a similar stuff which I bought from Lancelot Wines last year (see August 13). We liked them both and I have no idea which was the better buy; furthermore I don't think I know anybody buffy enough to have such an idea, generally moving in circles more beery than buffy.
PS: more of the funny highlighting to be expunged. What is going on?
As far as I could see, everything prior to around 1900, a span of maybe 300 years, is now confined to a single badly overcrowded room. Some pictures hung two up which makes the top one a bit hard to view. A good chunk of the place is closed. The remaining chunk is given over to beautifully displayed modern works - in most of which I had little interest and and some of which do not strike me as fit for a national collection of a serious country. OK, so the trustees have a duty to showcase what is being done now, but they might retain a sense of proportion and some respect for the efforts of previous generations, instead of displacing a whole lot of what were national treasures in favour of conceptual, installation and performance art. Triumphs of ego over art. The central hall, the rather grand one with pillars, is cluttered up with all kinds of odd stuff, including a large screen on which I saw moving pictures of combine harvesters. What on earth were they doing there?
The one bit of modern which caught my eye was a rather splendid curved mirror, maybe four feet in diameter, in which one saw the room behind, nicely distorted and upside down. The image moved around in an intriguing way as one moved around in front of it. A much more sensible and attractive affair than the much larger mirror which was stuck up next to the Serpentine last time I was there. The one by the chap who brings us the olympic tower, the picture of which I mistook for an April Fool joke from the 'Evening Standard'. Not only a large mirror but also a rather ugly one, at least to my eye. Other eyes were clearly more taken, if not taken in.
The still lifes were small in number but large in interest. Not least because I had forgotten that still life is another way of saying dead life, not something that has always been thought of as an appropriate subject for a picture. I liked the stuff by Edware Collier best, from the Netherlands despite his apparently English name. It seems that as the Netherlands declined from their glory days, a number of their painters came over here to try their luck, bringing the art with them. His letter racks were good fun. Perhaps, one day, the Tate will mount a more ambitious exhibition.
Followed up by a trip up to Tachbrook Street to check that the cheese shop was still there, which it was, as is the web site http://www.ripponcheese.com/. Nice drop of young emmenthal even if it did not come off a wheel - not so keen on the mature stuff. But, sadly, no Swaledale and had to settle for something called Trelawny instead. A fine cheese I dare say, but not really my sort of thing. Perhaps a bit young for me. Maybe they will patch things up with the Swaledale people (http://www.swaledalecheese.co.uk/) at some point and restock what I think is known as Swaledale traditional.
Back through Victoria Station where I was interested to find that W H Smiths had installed DIY checkout machines, very like those in our own little Waitrose at Epsom, except that they had been finished in black, rather than the paler shades favoured by the Waitrose décor people. It struck me as a rather cumbersome way to stump up the three or four quid needed to pay for one's Economist. Nostalgia induced for the days when Smiths thought to place large plastic buckets at the exits, into which one just chucked the three or four quid, under the eye of the watchful African-British security guard. Presumably they decided that the Caucasian-British fancy newspaper buying public were far too dishonest for such a simple scheme to work. In any event, using the DIY checkout I managed to get charged twice for the one copy of the Economist and had to wait while a helpful Subcontinental-British assistant manager went through his drill on his special workstation. Still managed to catch the next train though, so no damage done.
Back home to celebrate a record breaking bag, at that point at 55 hours on and going strong, running out eventually at 76.4 hours. Chose a bottle of 2008 Gervrey Chambertin (ex Waitrose) for the occasion and very nice it was too. Oddly enough with an element to the palette which reminded me strongly of our own sloe gin.
Perhaps 30p cheaper than the bottle of a similar stuff which I bought from Lancelot Wines last year (see August 13). We liked them both and I have no idea which was the better buy; furthermore I don't think I know anybody buffy enough to have such an idea, generally moving in circles more beery than buffy.
PS: more of the funny highlighting to be expunged. What is going on?
# posted by Jim @ 9:26 AM 
