To the Tate Gallery. I didn't like it.
My review of the Tate Modern Art gallery, which I visited on Sunday.
A visit to the Tate Modern. I hadn't really wanted to go but I took a wrong turn off the Millennium Bridge and ended up here instead of the Globe Theater.
I'm not really into Modern Art so I wasn't expecting much, and so I'm pleased to say that was the only time during my visit where I was not left disappointed.
Four punishing floors (once you manage to get into the world's smallest and slowest lifts) of quite baffling nonsense. I've been to some large museums in my time where, even after four hours of schlepping around endless displays of Etruscan pottery you're always happy to see another wing open up, the thrill of discovering something new and interesting enough to make you forget about the discomfort of your blood-soaked socks in your Sketchers, even though it's generally another expansive wing full of Etruscan tableware.
Not so the Tate.
At every turn there was another largely empty room with crud on the floors or wall. Art or rising damp? Who knows. Here, at the Tate, both would be considered an exhibit. On and on it went, with no relief in sight. I followed legions of weary travelers through this labyrinth; at some point I expected to run into the Minotaur. It was like breaking out of Colditz.
But eventually I found the exit, right next to the collection on Nigerian Modernism which not only needed tickets, it was also fully booked, somehow, so thankfully there was no danger of accidentally wondering into that.
Once out, and outside, I was briefly entertained by a street performer playing loud music and attempting to balance a few glass balls on his head -not very well, they kept falling off- all the while getting heckled off-screen by a local resident with a bullhorn from one of the nearby flats, threatening the performer with prosecution and suggesting a few things he could do with those glass balls, one of which would involve medical equipment and a lot of ketamine, but which, all things considered, would probably make a nice display at the Tate.
In the faint hope that may actually come to fruition, I'll be sure to visit the Tate the next time I'm in London.
⭐⭐