Tate Modern Turbine Hall, London

Everyone knows the Tate Modern, but do they know the building used to be a power station? Its transformation into a world renowned art gallery began in 1995, gutting the building and reconstructing the inside. The Tate Modern opened to the public in May 2000.

One of the most memorable parts of the building for me is the Turbine Hall, the huge space you walk into when you first enter. It is five storeys/35 metres high and 152 metres long. It has been used for displaying large commissioned art works, some of which I have found images for, above.

The very top image is by Olafur Eliasson, 2003-04. It is called The Weather Project, and is meant to represent the sun. It was made with a giant semi-circular form, and mono-frequenct lamps (otherwise known as street-lamps) circling it from behind. A fine mist infiltrated the air, creating an air of mystery and awe.

Carsten Holler created Test Site 2006. These were a series of tubes spiralling down from the top floor to the ground floor in the turbine hall. The name implies this is just a trial run for something even larger and better.

In 2007 Shibboleth by Doris Salcedo was commissioned. She created a chasm down the whole length of the turbine hall. Shibboleth means a custom, behaviour etc, that distinguishes different social classes. The fissure in the floor to me signifies how underneath our modern ways lies deeper issues that need to be addressed.

TH.2058 by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster was installed in 2008. It looked at what life would be like in 50 years time, and feature bunk beds, huge bug like sculptures, and snippets of science fiction films played on a huge screen. One of her biggest influences was the weather, and in particular the never ending rain, and how London has adapted to it. The scene represents a shelter where Londoners can take refuge from the rain, as well as the giant sculptures standing among the beds. The bunk beds are scattered with books, saved from the rain. I went to the Tate Modern when this installation was up, but unfortunately only saw it from above, and didn't have enough time to look around it. The first thing I saw was the giant spider sculpture towering above everything else. I couldn't see much else, I think I must have been on the top floor, but it was striking, and I did get an idea that it was something sci-fi related.

Embankment by Rachel Whiteread featured 14,000 casts of the inside of boxes, stacked on top of each other. The box that gave her inspiration was in her mothers house, shortly after she had died. It held memories for her, and from there she found more boxes to create the mountains of box casts. I vaguely remember visiting the Tate Modern when this installation was in the hall, and thinking they looke like sugar cubes. Whiteread wanted to make the hall look like a warehouse, and I think she succeeded.

This year Miroslaw Balka is being commissioned for the tenth installation in the Unilever series. It opens on 13th October if you are interested in visiting, and finishes 5th April 2010.

The Museum of Natural History

The Museum of Natural History can be found in New York, to the west of central park. It is a huge place, much like the Met. Some might remember it from the film, Night at the Museum. There are many different collections, most notably, The Milstein Hall of Ocean Life, Fossil Halls, and Extreme Mammals which was a temporary display. The latter contained the more obcure mammals, including a cast of the famous Darwinius Masillae, or Ida. This fossil is around 47 million years old, from Germany, and is one of the most complete primate fossils found. Even its stomach contents have been fossilised.

The ocean hall was impressive, with a 94 foot long blue whale hanging from the ceiling. It contains lots of dioramas, filled to the brim with life-like underwater species, and explains each one in great detail. The hall was restored in 2003, and even this year, six years on, it looked like it had only just be finished. The sound of the ocean plays through the speakers, and there is a huge screen playing films of the ocean. A definite must see out of all the collections.

The fossil halls, and in particular the dinosaur halls, are also a must see. Nearly 85% of the fossils on display are real. The Hall of Saurischian Dinosaurs holds the Tyrannosaurus rex (pictured above), and the huge Brontosaurus.

The museum will take a whole day to look around, maybe more, and is well worth a visit. There is something for everyone, and so many different exhibits to choose from that you can't get bored.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, otherwise known as the Met, is one of the largest art galleries in the world. The images above (apart from the very top) were taken on a phone and so are not the best quality. Their collection ranges from Asian art to Greek and Roman art, and they display over two million pieces of art. When I went I didn't get to walk around the whole museum, that would have taken a few days. But one of the best collections I saw was the Greek and Roman art. They had an extensive collection of sculptures still in good condition, others not so much. Even the room, if you can even call it that, where the sculptures were situated was impressive. Another collection I saw was the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. There are a couple of pictures above from this collection. There were huge intricately carved totem poles, and the strange thing hanging from the roof in the third image was a ceiling from a temple.
The Met has special collections that they display or a limited time only, and while I was there, they had a Francis Bacon collection on display. As one of my favourite artists I had to see it and it wasn't a let down. His work is haunting, filled with nightmarish people who look deeply tormented. I don't think I would want one hanging on my wall at home but they are defintely well worth a visit if an exhibition pops up.
The Met is an an amazing building even without the art work, with soaring ceilings and mammoth sized rooms. To see all the collections you would have to visit a couple of times at least, but as the collection is permanent you can go back again to one you wanted to see but may have missed.

MOMA

Whilst I was in New York I managed to visit loads of museums, one being the Museum of Modern Art.
From the outside it is a modest building, unlike the Met which I will review later. The interior is modern, and very white. A large room was dedicated to design, which is where I saw the Polish posters that I’ve blogged on.
What I enjoy most is seeing paintings that I know and know quite a bit about. Fortunately the MOMA is filled to the brim with artwork from new artists and the old, more well known artists. I took some photos and here are a select few.

I don't think I have ever seen a Jackson Pollock in the flesh before, and this was certainly impressive. It is called One:Number 31. I remember watching a programme at college about Pollock, and his painting technique. He laid the canvas' on the floor and used brushes, or sticks to flick and dribble the paint over the canvas. Sometimes he would even pour the paint on straight from the tin. The paint is so dense, and the colours contrast to make it look even more layered. This style was what Pollock became most known for.

I got quite excited about seeing this painting by Picasso, mostly because I wrote an essay on Cubism and analysed it for quite a while. It is called La Demoiselles d'Avignon and it was the very first Cubist painting, revolutionising art there on after. It depicts five prostitutes in a brothel. Picasso was influenced by Primitivism and African tribal masks, which Picasso said was to warn off evil spirits. It was unlike anything that had ever been painted before, women were usually rounded with soft edges, not sharp and pointy. Many people didn't like it because went completely against traditional painting, but some did, including Georges Braque, whose work was heavily influenced by Cubism. I was surprised it wasn't bigger than it was, I imagined it to be a huge painting but it was quite modest. Overall it was a highlight of the MOMA.

There was a lot of Andy Warhol, including the soup cans and this Marilyn Monroe print. Golden Marilyn Monroe was painted right after Monroe died, and it has a religious feel about it, due to the golden background and the lone print or Marilyn's head.

This painting by Edward Ruscha made me smile. Oof is a word found in comic books, so its somewhat odd seeing it in big yellow letters on a big canvas. The colours make it striking and its difficult not to notice it. Ruscha said they hold "a certain comedic value" which I definitely agree with, and it makes this strange painting even more appealing.

Javier Mariscal

I went to the Design Museum in London the other day, and there was an exhibition on Javier Mariscal. Admittedly I had never heard of him before but I loved his work! Its so vibrant and happy and it makes me smile!


Mariscal is Spanish and moved to Barcelona in the 70s. He first started work as an underground comic artist. A lot of his work, even the 3D work has a very comic-esque vibe to it. He has mostly taught himself and is a jack of all trades. He's designed furniture, jewellery, bars, hotels, clothes, textiles, ceramics, and has even ventured into performance and film-making.

(Above) This is the room in which you enter the exhibition, called the shower tunnel, and these drawings are hanging from the ceiling. The room is black and quite dark so you don't get the full effect from this picture. On the other side of the paper were drawings of cartoon characters, alphabets, and more.

These are some little Trompe l'Oeil pieces he made which were clever. The background is a film with the heads of two cartoon characters chatting away.

Mariscal also made 3D pieces. Above is a moped made of corrugated cardboard stuck together. Below is a little stucture of a living room and his animations playing on the telly.

No matter what he works with, he manages to make everything in his own unique style, its easily recognisable and very wacky.

If you aren't familiar with this work, you may recognise his branding for Barcelona, and in particular his typographic work, below.

The Guggenheim Museum New York

I got to visit the Guggenheim in New York the other week. It's not like any other building I've seen. Amongst the grandeur of the Upper East Side it looks other worldly, it has a futuristic air about it, even though it was completed in 1959. Frank Lloyd Wright was the brains behind the building, and he was known for his innovative architecture. Unfortunately for him and Solomon R. Guggenheim, who founded the Guggenheim foundation, neither lived to see the building completed.
The museum houses the late Guggenheims collection of art; he was a great admire of Vasily Kandinsky, as well as Expressionist and Surrealist paintings. However much of the museum holds the works of Frank Lloyd Wright and his many architectural designs.
The inside is just as original as the outside. Each level is connected with a continuous spiral walkway around the edge. Each level has a few rooms attached that don't take anything away from the sweeping curves of the main space in the middle of the building. The Guggenheim is topped off with a large glass dome that lets in lots of light, accentuating the smoothness of the interior.