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Showing posts with the label Tanks

Inside Tate Modern

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I paid a visit to Tate Modern to see the Giacometti exhibition and ended up spending the day there. It is a fantastic place for photography, especially the new Blavatnik building with it's concrete structure. I started in the Tanks area and then, after a coffee went over to see the Giacometti where you are not supposed to take pictures, although I did sneak in a couple. I then went round the general galleries before returning to the Blavatnik building and going up to the viewing area at the top. I saw a Giacometti exhibition on the Sainsbury Centre at Norwich University last year. Although there was not quite the amount of major works it was a more interesting than the Tate exhibition. Starting in the Tanks, I have put the information boards up underneath the art pieces where appropriate. There was a magnificent rendition of Thomas Tallis,  Motet for Forty Voices, engineered by Janet Cardiff with Salisbury Cathedral Choir. Each singer had been miked separately and had thei

Tate Modern, the Tanks

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Now that the Switch House extension has been completed the Tanks have re-opened as well. These cast grey concrete structures were once used as oil tanks for the power station but now they serve as underground exhibition areas. I was very pleased to be able to photograph in the stygian gloom of the video streaming rooms and look at the novel ideas in the other spaces.  The video was by Thai artist Apichatpong Weerasethakul and was filmed in a town near the Mekong river where the Thai army suppressed communism among the local farmers using murder and abuse. There was a well lit are containing several pieces including a blue meccano like structure by Rasheed Arleen which is reassembled by the Tate staff each morning. For variety there were some glass cubes as well as musical objects and some pottery.