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London Poetry, Dream and Walks

Monday, October 5th, 2009

Good morning. We trust you slept well. We hope that you are enjoying the insights into Tate Modern that we are providing on our London walks blog.

Today we are going to leave behind the Energy and Process wing and glide effortlessly into the Poetry and Dream wing.

One of the works that we will look at there is a painting entitled Reckless Sleeper, which was painted in 1928 by the Belgian artist Rene Margritte.

The first thing to notice about the painting is that it has a definite feeling of unease and disorientation about it.

It appears to be a picture of a man sleeping in a bed over a grey painted area on which various objects such as an apple, a candle, a crow, a blue ribbon bow and a mirror have been painted.

In fact if you look at the left side of the grey section as you stare full on at the painting you can even see that it traces the profile of the face of the sleeper above.

Behind the grey segment there is a vast almost menacing area of very dark blue which might represent the night, or it  might be representative of the man’s sub conscious.

If this is the case then the grey segment may be as sort of though bubble, the type you see in childrens comics, and the items may be things he is dreaming about, or things that his waking self holds dear or even values.

Magritte was very influenced by the, at the time, revolutionary ideas on psychoanalysis and dream interpretation that had recently been introduced by Sigmund Freud.

In Freudian dream interpretation symbols such as candles are seen as phallic symbols, whilst apples are seen as being female and, in particular, representative of breasts.

Margritte himself once said of his paintings that he used:-

“Visible images which conceal nothing; they evoke mystery and, indeed, when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question, ‘What does that mean?’. It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable.”

Bearing that statement in mind the Reckless Sleeper could also have another meaning which we will discuss in our next posting later today.

In the meantime why not have a look around our site and take a look at the various and, indeed, varied London walks and Jack the Ripper Tours that we offer.

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Turning Over a New Leaf in Walks.

Sunday, October 4th, 2009

We started with a pun this morning and, since we’re still going to be talking about a tree, we thought we might as well continue with the theme, hence the title of this blog.

We’re looking at adding a whole series of new London walks next year to be led by our team of freelance Blue Badge Guides who we’ve been working with more and more this year.

Blue Badge Guides are, quite simply, the best trained and most professional guides in the world.

The course that they have to do to attain their guiding qualification is both grueling and in depth. Yet they emerge with the ability to be able to guide on any subject and in any part of London and other parts of the country.

So that is why we have been using more and more Blue Badge Guides on our London walks.

One of the areas we are going to be branching out into next year (hence the awful puns about turning over a new leaf and branching out) is Art Tours of London. That is why we have been taking you inside Tate Modern in our last few blogs and will continue to to so in the days ahead.

This morning’s London Walking Tour blog ended with Penone with his Tree of Twelve Metres taking an industrial beam that he had purchased from a saw mill back to its basic form as a tree.

Penone makes us aware of the simple fact that everything made of wood was once a tree, so he has extracted from the beam the shape of a tree that was fossilized within.

He has gone back over the entire phenomenon of growth and traced the moment when the hand of man brought the trees growth to a halt.

Penone said of his work “I consider my work in a certain sense like a film sequence, shot in the opposite direction and strongly accelerated.”

So his Tree of 12 metres can be looked at in three phases.

At the base of each half of the tree we see the initial beam.

Then you can see the chisel marks that led to the moment when the still unfinished tree surfaced from the beam.

Finally you can look up at the tree restored to its form.

Looked at in this way it is a very beautiful, even graceful work and is illustrative of the concept that art is often not what it seems, because when you know the background of how Penone created this, you realsie that, what at first seems to be nothing more than two trees displayed as art, is in fact a carefully chiseled sculpture carved with all the skill and precision of a Renaissance sculptor.

We’ll be moving on in Tate Modern very shortly and having a look at two more art works in the Energy and Process wing at Tate Modern.

You can, if you wish, join us on one of our Jack the Ripper Walks or even enjoy one of the other Walking Tours that we offer to groups on a private basis.

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Branch Out With Our Walks in London

Sunday, October 4th, 2009

OK, there is a bit of punning going on with this Walking Tour of London Art blog, but, hey, it’s Sunday and we’re about to talk about a tree!

In last night’s post we made reference to how trees feature extensively on our London walks and then neatly used that to take you seamlessly into the Energy and Process wing of Tate Modern, where we proceeded to introduce Guiseppe Penone’s Tree of 12 metres.

We then left you hanging with the tantalising fact that you are, in fact, not looking at a tree, but rather you are looking at a carefully crafted piece of sculpture.

Our London walks are full of little surprises like this - things are sometimes just not what they seem!

What you are in fact looking at with Tree of 12 metres is a massive industrial timbered beam, that Penone purchased from a saw mill,  which he then proceeded to carefully chisel away at  in order to, if you’ll pardon the deliberate pun, take it back to its roots.

This recreated tree stands on two heavy bases of timber which are the reminders to us that it has been carved from a beam.

And if you look at the base of the piece of tree to the left you can even see the red paint stripe with which it was marked in the saw mill.

Then looking at the base of each half of the tree you can see the chisel marks left behind as Penone began carefully following the knots of the wood to take the beam back to its youth as a tree.

In effect you are looking at a Momento Mori of nature, of a dead tree that has been raised again.

We’ll continue with this post later today. In the meantime why not feast you eyes on the many different London walks that you can enjoy?

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London, Trees, Walks and Art.

Saturday, October 3rd, 2009

Trees feature a great deal in our various London walks. For example on the Secret City Walk we point out a tree on Cheapside, close to St. Paul’s Cathedral, that the poet William Wordsworth actually wrote a poem about.

But to return to our little wanderings inside the Energy and Process wing at Tate Modern, we can even point out a tree in there and link it to our other London Walking Tours.

The tree in question is a work called Tree of 12 meters created in the early 1980’s by the Italian artist Giuseppe Penone.

It takes a while to “get” this sculpture. At first glance you appear to be staring at two very stark almost skeletal trees that appear to be almost petrified.

You could be forgiven for thinking that you are just looking at two dead trees that someone has stood upright and decided to call them art.

If that is what Penone has done then it could, of course, be a follow on to Marcel Duchamp’s breakthrough in the early 20th century when he bought a urinal displayed it in an art gallery making the belief that if he as an artist took an everyday object, no matter how mundane or basic, and displayed it in an art gallery then it became a work of art.

So, if Penone takes two dead trees and displays them in an art gallery setting, then they too become art.

And indeed, that would be exactly what the Arte Poverta movement would revel in.  An ordinary, everyday object that is used by an artist to create a work of art.

Except, Tree of 12 metres is not any every day object, it is in fact a carefully and skillfully carved work that has been created using one of the oldest forms of sculpture - carving.

We’ll return to this theme in tomorrow’s blog as our Haunted London walk is about to take place.

In the meantime, don’t forget that we have a whole  host of wonderul London walks that will show you places that you would never dream still existed.

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Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Artist

Saturday, October 3rd, 2009

London is a a City of Art and our Walks include numerous wonderful places where works of art can be seen. Indeed, we have been known to refer to our London walks as Walks of Art!

Last night, before we were called away to do a little bit of scary art of our own on the London Ghost Walks, we started telling you a little bit about a painting by Nikki de Saint Phalle, which can be seen in the Energy and Process wing of Tate Modern.

We explained how, at first, the picture, one of her Shooting Paintings, seems like a series of coloured streaks running down a plaster.

But we ended by telling you how Nikki de Saint Phalle actually made chance itself the main creator of the painting. Here’s how.

She would begin with a wooden base board which she would lay down flat on a surface.  This done she would fill plastic bags with different colours of liquid paint.

Having done this she would then cover everything with plaster so that she had a pristine white, rough mound of plaster piled against the background of the board.

She would wait for it to dry and then would be ready to “create” the painting.

The board would be raised upright and Nikki would then take a .22 rifle and shoot at the plaster.

The bullets would penetrate the plaster and would then rupture the plastic bags beneath causing the paint to run down the surface of the plaster in streaks of colour that mixed, mingled and pooled together.

Thus the element of chance effectively became the means by which the painting was created.

It was a revolutionary way to create a painting since it brought a new realism into art and, as a result, Nikki de Saint Phalle became famous and travelled all over the world to stage her Shooting Paintings.

The one you’re looking at in Energy and Process was created on the stage of the American Embassy in Paris on the evening of June 20th 1961.

Two American artists, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, fired the bullets at the plaster and created what you see before you. So this could be said to be a collaboration between de Saint Phalle and these two other artists.

Shortly after this was created Nikki de Saint Phalle was introduced by Marcel Duchamp to Salvador Dali, both of whose works we will cover in a later post.

However, Nikki de Saint Phalle stopped creating her Shooting Pictures in 1963 saying that she had become addicted to shooting “like one becomes addicted to a drug.”

We will continue our tour of the art inside Tate Modern later today with a look at the central hub of Energy and Process as we look at Arte Povera itself.

You can, if you wish,take a look at our various London walks or tonight you can join us on one of our Old City of London Ghost Walks.

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Shooting Pictures on our London walks

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

The idea of shooting paintings on our City of London walks might seem an odd concept but, to continue our tour through the collection at Tate Modern, we discuss a painting on display in the Energy and Process wing that was “created” by the French born artist Nikki de Saint Phalle.

It dates from 1961 and is entitled Shooting Paintings.

When you first look at Shooting Paintings you see a stream of colours that run down a rough white plaster surface to create streaks of single and mingled colours that blend and pool together towards the bottom of the painting.

In fact what you are looking at is an art work that takes the concept of chance in a painting but uses that chance to actually create the painting.

If you look at the white plaster on Shooting Paintings you can see small round holes in the plaster.  Sticking out of them you will notice torn or burst remnants of plastic bags. It is in fact these punctured plastic bags that have created the painting.

Artists have always recognised that chance can intervene to alter a painting. A dribble of paint might, for example, run down the canvass from the brush as the artist is painting. That single dribble of paint actually changes the painting, even if only very slightly.

The artists then has a choice, does he or she leave the dribble of paint, or does he or she wipe it away or paint over it. Either way this chance dribble has altered the painting.

What Nikki de Saint Phalle has done in Shooting Painting is to take that element chance  and make it the central force that actually creates the painting.

We will explain how in our blog tomorrow. We are currently getting ready for our Friday night Haunted London walk so will return to ourShooting Pictures post first thing tomorro morning. Sleep tight!

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London - it’s a Walk of Art

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

Yesterday we left you cowering beneath the two huge slabs of metal that combine to make Richard Serra’s Trip Hammer, having earlier discussed where else you can see examples of his work on our London walks.

Today we’ll have a closer look at this precariously balanced piece and ponder exactly what is the meaning behind it.

Of course the main point that we like to make time and again on our Walks of London is that, no matter where you are standing in this great city look around you.

London is a city of surprises and on our London walking tours we make a point of creating wonder out of the ordinary.

But for now, let’s return to Trip Hammer.

Richard Serra was born in San Francisco  in 1939. Whilst at university he helped support himself by working in steel mills, and this would later have an enormous impact on his art and an influence on the materials he chose to use in his art.

Although he has worked in lead and other materials, examples of which can be seen in the main hub of the Energy and Process wing, steel has become his preferred material for his art.

With Trip Hammer you can actually see how he likes to use the very steeliness of the steel to create an abstract that doesn’t represent anything, but which most certainly makes you ponder it, perhaps even fear it.

It is, in effect, taking the concept of Marcel Duchamp’s “ready mades” and using an ordinary, everyday object, that is not really meant to be seen, and displaying it in such away as to make the spectator not just look at it but to also wonder about it.  Both to stand in awe before it and be apprehensive about the potential for disaster that emanates from the work - it is, if you like, the ultimate in chance in art.

But there is also  the natural art in the steel itself.

Steel, of course, degrades and rusts - you can see this on the two pieces of steel he uses for Trip Hammer, both of which show signs of rust.

So this element adds another dimension to the work, ensuring that it will keep changing and developing as a piece.

Amazingly in Spain  in 2005, the Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid announced that they had somehow managed to “mislay” a 38-tonne sculpture that Serra had created!

Our next posting will look at another intriguing work in Tate Modern where chance really does play a part in the very creation of the painting itself.

Be sure to check out the various London walks we offer and don’t forget that we also do a nightly Jack the Ripper Tour that you might like to join us on.

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Trip Hammer - Art Walks London

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

Moving on in our quest to take a closer look at London on our Walks we move across the dialogue room in Energy and Process at Tate Modern and take a look at two huge slabs of steel that are balanced precariously, one on top of the other.

This is in fact an art work by Richard Serra and it is entitled Trip Hammer.

We do actually encounter another piece of Richard Serra’s work on our London walks around Liverpool Street Station.

He was responsible for one of the art works that grace (if that is the correct term) the Broadgate Development. This work is called Fulcrum and it consists of three huge sheets of metal that stand 55 feet high and lean against each other.

Fulcrum is what is known as “site specific art,” that is it is meant to exist at a specific location. As Richard Serra himself once said - when in the early 1980’s the New York authorities wanted to remove another of his site specific works. Titled Arc on the grounds that it restricted there passage through Federal Plaza in New York City -  “to remove the work is to destroy it.”

Trip Hammer, on display in the Energy and Process wing of Tate Modern, is about the sense of unease and anxiety that it instills in the spectator.

Luckily there is a protective bar around it to protect the work. But it’s also there to protect us from the work, because Trip Hammer consists of two delicately balanced pieces of industrial steel that are kept upright by their sheer weight and by minimal contact with the wall behind.

Both pieces of steel are 2.6 meters by 1.3 meters and the top one balances precariously on an edge that is just 5cm across.

It has minimal contact with the wall behind, in fact it just touches it ever so lightly. The two pieces aren’t fixed together in any way, it is their sheer weight, coupled with the force of gravity, that keeps them upright.

In other words it wouldn’t take much to topple them and the fact that they could fall at any moment makes us aware of the space we’re standing  in relation them.

So with Trip Hammer we have an artwork that combines classical simplicity with a sense of  nervous energy, some of which may well be coming from us as we contemplate the possibility that it could, in theory, fall on us at any moment!

Our next Walk of Art posting will look a little closer at this Richard Serra piece and will tell you a little bit about the artist who created it.

Of course you are very welcome to join us on one of our City of London walks or even on one of our Shakespeare London walking tours that takes in the area of Bankside where Tate Modern stands.

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Art and Walks in London - More Tate Modern

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

So, to continue where we left off when we introduced you to the Energy and Process wing at Tate Modern, and told you a bit about which of our London walks end close to Tate Modern so that you can pay it a visit

We were in the Energy and Process wing trying to make sense of Dynamic Suprematism by the Russian Artist Kasimir Malevich and got as far as explaining that what, at first glance, seems like a meaningless jumble of different shapes is, in fact, a very spiritual and mystical work.

In a later post we will look at a painting by a leading member of the Futurist art movement that came out of Italy in 1909.

Like the Futurists Malevich was very excited by the brave new technological world that the dawning of the 20th century had ushered in.

Scientific advancements such as motor cars and airplanes had given people a radically different perception of speed and movement.

Mankind could travel faster than ever before. He could look down on landscapes from high above and, in so doing, gain a totally new perspective on the world and his surroundings.

But for Russia in 1915, at the time when Malevich painted Dynamic Suprematism, the new technological age was about something more than a mere altering of peoples perspectives and perceptions about their surroundings - it was a catalyst for cataclysmic, huge social upheaval that would culminate in the Russian Revolution of 1918 and the overthrow of the Czar.

Malevich and his fellow, left wing artists were eagerly awaiting the coming of this new Russia and the resultant government by the people and for the people.

So this should be looked at as the art of a coming new world. An art that would replace religious icons with a simplicity that would enable people to look into and ponder a painting.

Indeed, just as the religious icons of old were intended to make you stop and ponder the world beyond, so to does Dynamic Suprematism make you forget about the materialism of art and look instead at the meaning behind the art.

So there we end our look at the work of Kasimir Malevich in Tate Modern’s Energy and Process wing.

Tomorrow we’ll pick up on the work that stares across at it in the dialogue room, Richard Serra’s Trip Hammer.

In the meantime, why not join us on a London walk to explore the places that surround Tate Modern and to enjoy a stroll over the Millennium Bridge following in the foosteps of Shakespeare and Dickens.?

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Dynamic Suprematism - Art Walks London

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

Art on Our London walks.

It’s amazing how many times art turns up on our Walks in London. It might be a little bit of street furniture or an entire dummy window painted to resemble a family sitting room such as the one encountered on our City of London walks.

Earlier today we began looking at a work in the Energy and Process wing of Tate Modern that was painted by the Russian artist Kasimir Malevich entitled Dynamic Suprematism.

We explained how at first glance it might seem like just a group of geometric objects, such as triangles and rectangles and crosses. However, we then explained how Malevich intended the viewing of his work to be a spiritual experience for the spectator.

In that respect Dynamic Suprematism is very much a spiritual and mystical painting. Try as you might, there is nothing for your eyes to actually focus on in the work. The shapes themselves are slightly tilted - pushing and pulling against each other.  Shapes are painted over shapes or else balanced, almost precariously, on top of each other - so you actually do get a sense of movement but your eye just can’t rest on it nor can they focus on any one part of the painting.

In essence that is the meaning behind Dynamic Suprematism, for Malevich wants us to stop thinking about the material of the painting and, instead, hewants us to look into the painting. As Malevich himself once said “art should be liberated from the dead weight of the material world.”

When it was first displayed the painting caused a sensation. It is still a very radical piece, even by today’s standards, so you can imagine the effect it had on a Russia that was used to high art and religious iconography.

We’ll continue with this theme later today, in the meantime why not check out one of  our Shakespeare Walks of London that take in the south side of the River Thames and after which you can, if you wish, pay a visit to Tate Modern.

You can also join us on one of our London Art Walks.

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