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London, England
But all of these dreams keep coming back to me slowly, slowly
Easily one of my top five favorite art museums anywhere (along with MoMA, the Walker in Minneapolis, the Pompidou and. I don’t know, let’s say MASS MoCA) is the Tate Modern. Like most of the British museums (including the actual British Museum), admission is free and the place is crowded. Luckily the vastness of the Tate Modern helps to disperse all those crowds and the recent massive addition helps even more.
Not only do you come to the Tate Modern to see what’s inside, but you also come to the Tate Modern to see what’s outside. Always annoying elevators bring you up to the Switch House tower (like the rest of the museum it was designed by Swiss architect heroes Herzog & de Meuron) where terrific views of the City and the Thames await.
Sure, I love the Tate Modern (I just said a few pictures ago that it was easily one of my favorite art museums anywhere), but (as always) there’s another reason that I went there this year other than the permanent collection and the view. In 2019, I decided to return to London not just because of Open House London Weekend or the Serpentine Pavilion or the London Design Festival or even Car Free Day (honestly I didn’t even find out about Car Free Day until Car Free Day Eve) but also to come back here. The Tate Modern was home to “In Real Life,” a special exhibit by Olafur Eliasson, easily one of my top five favorite living artists.
Kicking things off on another rainy day in London was Olafur Eliasson’s “Waterfall, 2019", which is, well, a waterfall in 2019 nestled (or, more accurately, hidden) way in the back of the Switch House on the south side of the museum.
One of my top five favorite living artists (along with Richard Serra, Anselm Kiefer, James Turrell and, I don’t know, let’s say Yayoi Kusama) is Olafur Eliasson. I have stalked, um, I mean appreciated his work for some time, something long time fans of the slideshows are already too well aware of. Whether it’s an indoor rocky stream, or a giant, magical waterfall on the Grande Perspective, or a series of see through, walk through prisms), or even a life size walk through flat circular rainbow, you know I’m there. In fact, I’ve seen enough Olafur Eliasson exhibits in places like New York and Louisiana (the one in Denmark and not the one in, well, Louisiana) that starting the experience once again by walking through his “Model Room” feels almost comforting in a way.
The Olafur Eliasson show was organized on a single floor of the Switch House and required advance tickets, something I secured immediately after booking my flight and well before I figured out what hotel I was going to stay at (that ended up being a quite nice Hotel Indigo on the suspiciously named London Street just a block away from Paddington and the Heathrow Express). The timed entry tickets kept the crowds inside the exhibit manageable, which is especially important in an Olafur Eliasson exhibition where some moments, like this one, are best experience and appreciated with some level of solitude. This is a well named piece called “Beauty” where, in a room somewhat off the main circulation, water and light and darkness can feel magical, if only for a moment.
There were a lot of different pieces of art in “In Real Life,” but the most popular ones have an almost fun house vibe to them. This is “Your Uncertain Shadow,” which is well named (like most of Olafur Eliasson’s art) and consisted of an interactive wall where people’s multi color projected shadows provided a great opportunity for them to take a picture with their phones.
Talk about a fun house, these are two different pieces of artwork all about mirrors and reflections located in the same room. The first picture is “Your Spiral View” which was a walk through experience while the second picture “Your planetary window” was an opportunity to see outside.
The pictures that I chose from “In Real Life” for the slideshow only give you a small taste of the overall show. I didn’t take pictures of everything (sometimes I manage to re-convince myself that not every experience in my life needs to be photographed) and the fifteen (or so) different galleries were filled with all kinds of experiences that made my decision to go back to London this year feel like it was worth it.
We’re going to end the Olafur Eliasson pictures and this whole London slideshow deep inside some color.
The highlight of “In Real Life” was called “Your Blind Passenger,” and, even with the limited timed entry tickets, there was an additional wait inside to experience it. Visitors (just like me) were slowly let into a 125 foot long corridor completely immersed in fog and color, where the visibility ahead of you was no more than just a few feet at best. And the color changed as you walked through, ending in a literally blinding white as you reached the exit. The experience was both exhilarating and terrifying, as if you were trapped in some parallel dimension where existence had yet to be created. Especially at the times when the people in front of you disappeared from your incredibly limited view, you found yourself alone in absolutely nothing, with only the fog and all that color watching as you (hopefully) continued to walk in the right direction.
