I'm a big fan of Tate Britain. I can be a little ambivalent about other parts of Tate's empire, but what I still (and probably always will) think of as the Tate Gallery is, more or less, a wonder. A time there was when it didn't open until 2pm and, still at school, I would come up from my family's home in Maidstone on the bus and wait in the early afternoon crowd outside. A little later I'd go to the Sunday morning openings restricted just for the Friends, when the galleries were largely, gloriously empty.
Now it's unthinkable that the place wouldn't be fully open on Sunday mornings from 10am -- and that's where I've spent the past couple of hours. And among the paintings I saw was The Green Earth 1979-80 by Victor Pasmore, of whom and which more below.
Why is the place so special? Here's what I particularly enjoyed this morning...
- There's the major summer show, Lure of the East, which is fascinating. Lots of good paintings, an intelligent display, many surprises. Perhaps worth noting here are a couple of things about the form of the exhibition. One is that alongside a number of the captions are "Comment" panels from a range of academics and others giving their personal responses to particular works -- I can't recollect Tate having done this before in a show, but certainly it adds a welcome dimension here. The other is that there's a really neat animated map that's projected in the middle of the show outlining the development of the Ottoman Empire from 1683 to 1920, together with the journeys of a number of travellers whose works (or portraits) are featured in the exhibition. It's a particularly good use of media -- and what's more you can download it as a .mp4 from Tate's website.
- In the otherwise entirely empty Duveen Galleries, Martin Creed's Work No 850 is underway, with a runner sprinting the length of the spaces every 30 seconds. Then the galleries "rest" for 30 seconds. Whatever else, to see runners earnestly racing for the end wall of the Duveen brings a smile to your face, but it also, of course, raises ideas about display and collections -- and indeed what a work of art can be.
- Some of Mitra Tabrizian's recent photographs have been brought together in an impressive display that perhaps appeals more to the intellect than the heart but which are nonetheless well worth seeing. This is a small show that a couple of years ago you'd never have seen at Tate, but would rather have expected it at The Photographers' Gallery.
- One room is devoted to a terrific collection of Victor Pasmore's paintings and assemblages. This is one of those mini-retrospectives that Tate does so well, drawing on the depths of its British collection. There is a fine intimate interior painted during the wartime blackout -- Lamplight 1941 -- and the late The Green Earth (above) as well as around a dozen other, mostly abstract works in-between. It isn't a grand statement about Pasmore but rather a considered presentation, devised by the estimable Chris Stephens, that's sufficiently broad to allow you to see something of the artist's development without being overwhelmed. And, like everything else apart from Lure of the East, it's free.
- In the adjacent gallery, there's smaller but equally welcome display of Robyn Denny's art from the late 1950s, when he was working with collaged newsprint and concerned with the forms of language and communication. The works are contextualised by a couple of vitrines with photographs and documents, including Denny's scrapbook thesis for the RCA, lent by the artist.
- Also in the collection galleries is a room with two tremendous Philip King sculptures, Call and Nile, both from 1967, complemented by a dazzling Bridget Riley, Late Morning 1967-8. I've long been interested in King's work, and like the art of both Pasmore and Denny, I'd love to make a film about it, but I can't think I've ever seen Call before. (The fact that Tate's website has only a black-and-white image of it, and no accompanying text, suggests that it hasn't been out of the store for quite a while.)
I go fairly frequently to Tate Britain but somehow there's always something that's surprising, something new in the collection galleries, something that I've never seen before. Tate Britain manages to refresh itself constantly and in doing so to attract decent crowds. Even so, despite there being a healthy number of visitors to Lure of the East, I was still on my own for much of the time in the Pasmore and Denny rooms. Which is a big part of what I like about Tate Britain.
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