At Tate Modern

Each time I'm in London, I visit Tate Modern at least twice. And I like to spend at least 3 hours there each time. I like museums. And Tate Modern is one of my favorite-st in the whole wide world.

Headlining Tate Modern's exhibitions this quarter is Gauguin. They titled it 'Maker of Myth'. The exhibition is so busy that their tickets specify the exact times of entry, and not stroll in as one pleases. It was really crowded and made lingering over any one art piece rather difficult. It's not exactly pleasant to keep bumping into humans at every turn no matter how small a step I took.

The curator also gave the audience a peek into Gauguin's life and times, relationships and his children. Gauguin possessed immense talent, like most of the artists of the period, depicted through his adoption of different forms of expression. I admire his thirst and quest for knowledge, inspiration and new styles, all of which reflected bold strokes during his time.

I very much prefer his wood carvings and stoneware ceramic grotesque figures which seem to hold more depth and mystery. I'm not a fan of his paintings nor their subject matter. It's rather disturbing, between what he sees in his mind's eye and the supposed reality in that era. The curator for this exhibition has focused on drawing out his thoughts during his time spent in Tahiti, Brittany and Breton.

I also wanted to check out Ai Weiwei's 'Sunflower Seeds'. It was meant to be an interactive installation, and I had wanted to go trample on it and take home 1 seed. But it was not to be so. Tate Modern has closed off public access on the artwork and it's now simply a visual installation due to the many many concerns about ceramic dust. Hmmmmm. It's a political voice. The artist is now under house arrest and his studio in Shanghai faces demolition. There's much food for thought about the voice of democracy and of the individual.

So all I could do, was to watch the video that depict the making of these porcelain seeds one by one, and squat by the side to peer at the installation, and think about what artist wants to portray with the idea of sunflower seeds, the values they embody the audience reactions he hopes to incite.

It was a good day at the museum.