On Saturday we spent the afternoon at the Tate Modern. Admittedly, it's not a place that I really "get" sometimes. You know, how a messy bed can be worth £2.2m - if I'd known that when I was a kid I would've had a great excuse not to make my bed and make some money doing it too!
We explored the Georgia O'Keeffe exhibition, which isn't art that any kid could do. The American artist is best known for paintings of magnified flowers, animal skulls, and New Mexico desert landscapes. Now I'm no art reviewer (probably why I don't "get" a lot of the things in the Tate) but the highlights for me were the painted New York cityscapes, which were stunning.
On top of that, there was also 'Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1', which is the world's most expensive painting by a women after it sold at auction a few years ago for US$44.4m. It's not every day you get to see something that amazing, and makes me think I should perhaps get into art.
It was also the first time we've been back to the Tate since its redevelopment, which was completed earlier this year. Part of that includes a new viewing platform on the 10th floor, giving views of St Paul's, the City, and even into the neighbours' flash apartments. And best of all, it's completely free to the public.
Before leaving, we also admired the large installation in the Turbine Hall. Made up of lights, projectors and panels, all of which moved throughout the day, Philippe Parreno's 'Anywhen' is meant to challenge your perception of time and space. It certainly did, as we found ourselves watching all the moving pieces for ages. Its sequences are all powered by a computer which apparently uses software informed by micro-organisms. While I'm not sure how true that really is, the end result looked amazing. Various screens moved up and down, sometimes with a light on them, sometimes showing a film, sometimes just hanging near the ceiling. On top of that you had random sounds echoing throughout the hall and various lights turning on and off at random intervals.
The Tate really is massive now and you need more than an afternoon to explore it all. We didn't even scratch the surface on this visit, and considering all the new exhibition spaces there's plenty more to see and do next time.