Our small office in a WeWork near Waterloo has been available pretty much all through Lockdown – WeWork hasn’t closed at all, I think, as that would have meant they’d have needed to refund rent…and they’re deep enough in the scheiße as it is.
In going to work on the odd occasion, I’ve either made sure there’s a social angle with work (e.g small team lunch) or a cultural excursion. The Tate Modern re-opened a while back, and have extended the Andy Warhol exhibition, so I paid it a visit.
The weird thing about the Warhol is, it’s all so familiar. The design sources were mass-produced in the first place (that was kind of the point), but even Warhol’s renderings of them have themselves been reproduced so many times, the originals (which don’t have any particular depth, or fancy brushwork, after all) don’t really have much power of their own. His life story is interesting though – I hadn’t realised that he was shot and nearly died in 1968, but recovered and continued, even amplified, his influence for another 20 years beyond that.
The Tate also had a Bruce Nauman feature – it struck me as work that was clearly very interesting at its time, but now seems a little, “oh, well, of course” – nihilism and automation via neon displays, and impersonality and anonymous power of CCTV observation – in the 70s this might have seemed dangerous…now it’s just what we’ve been living with for at least a decade.
Finally, the turbine hall had a vast sculptured fountain which was fun, but I’m not sure what the objective was beyond that. Not that there’s anything wrong with fun.
Finally finally, on the way back to the office, I noticed this new mural work near Blackfriars station. It may not be challenging perceptions, but it’s nicely done and very popular.
Timsformational 