Cathy's Art Diary

Badly designed exhibition at Tate Modern presenting work by Tracey Emin over 40 years. I found the show badly arranged and claustrophobic. There are video installations on the main walk through not inside rooms so the pathway fills up and if you don’t want to stand and watch you have to push through. A lot of the art is quite wordy so people stand for ages trying to make out the handwriting. There are no information boards just labels. Are we meant to use an app instead? Please make that clear if that is correct? It assumed people already knew Emin’s story, which I did, but if you didn’t you might feel quite lost and the work could feel random. I wonder if it’s deliberate in a show full of angst to try to induce anxiety. I lasted 20 minutes. I’m not a great fan of Emin’s work as I find it quite introspective but often individual pieces can be very moving and these shine through. It was lovely to see the bed again and I loved a crucifixion painting. I liked the quilts but in th...

Interesting installation in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern by Máret Ánne Sara, a Sámi artist. The Sami people are indigenous to Northern Scandinavia and Sara draws on their reindeer herding traditions in the two works in this installation. The first one you see hangs reindeer hides floor to ceiling by electric cables. I hadn’t realised when I was there that these were impregnated with a scent released by the animal as a warning sign. I’ll have to go back and have a sniff as I felt this piece wasn’t big enough for the space. The main work was a maze-like structure made of branches based on the internal anatomy of the reindeer’s nose. I was so taken by that I missed that this too was scented and there were sculptures based on the animals ears. Another reason to go back and a lesson to read the blurb more carefully. Closes 6 April 2026 Reviews Times Guardian Telegraph    

Dense exhibition at Tate Modern examining modern art in Nigeria before and after independence. There was a lot to get across in this show and at times it was difficult to tell if it was an art exhibition or a history one. It was also hung thickly, often with works which we’re very similar to each other, which diluted their effect. I liked the way it was arranged by school or artist giving a good chronology but with overlaps. My favourite room, despite the hang, was the one dedicated to Ben Enwonwu, the first African modernist to gain international recognition. I was particularly intrigued by the seven sculptures down the centre of the room which my eye read as a choir which turned out to have been commissioned for the headquarters of the Daily Mirror. I liked the inclusion of a potter, Ladi Kwali. Favourite pieces included Bruce Onobrakpeya’s “Last Supper” and “Stations of the Cross” hung to resemble an altarpiece, Jimo Akolo’s colourful picture of Fulani horsemen and   Uzo ...

Beautiful but impenetrable exhibition at Tate Modern looking at the indigenous Australian artist, Emily Kan Kngwarray.   Given this art would be new to a lot of the audience who were viewing it I felt it could have been explained more clearly. It is only from looking at the website now that I realise the artist didn’t start producing art until her 70s and I never found a good explanation of her technique. The descriptions of the belief system behind the works and the concept of ‘Dreamers’ were confusing and relied on an acceptance of strange ideas rather than clear explanation. Having said that I found the works themselves tranquil a nd beautiful. They mainly consisted of dots of paint obscuring an image below. Some felt like maps. I loved the intense colours and how they reacted together. Inevitably to a European eye they make you think of Pointillism not helped by the fact there is a Pointillist show at the National Gallery at the moment.   The paintings were shown wi...

Gentle exhibition at Tate Modern looking at the work of land artist Richard Long. Long creates work by walking. His walks and the sculptures made along the way are recorded through photographs, maps and text works. His names often comes up in the context of being a new landscape artist.   The show included a selection of his maps and walk pictures made on his walks as well as photographs of his temporary sculptures in landscape which were shown around three of his circle sculptures designed for galleries and a recreation of one of his mud paintings which he did for the opening of the gallery.   The show worked like an installation and had a very calming effect. No end date given.

Disappointing exhibition at Tate Modern examining Picasso and performance.   Curated by, or as the blurb says ‘staged by’ contemporary artist Wu Tsang and author and curator Enrique Fuenteblanca, it treated the theme quite widely, looking not only at Picasso’s work for theatre and how he was influenced by it but also at how he himself became a performance. The layout was overly clever, presenting some of it on a stage so the visitors became part of the display but a large screen showing animations of his work seemed to sideline the lovely array of paintings which were there.   The reason for the show was the centenary of the Tates large work by Picasso “The Three Dancers” which felt like it had its back to the display space although it could also be seen from the lower ‘auditorium’ space. I know a show just on Picasso’s work for the theatre would seem old fashioned and, to be honest I think I might have seen it already, but it would have been a better context for the ...

Moving exhibition at Tate Modern looking at the work of Do Ho Suh. Walk the House is a South Korean saying which Suh takes to describe how we carry multiple places with us across space and time. This show examines art works he has made from and about his homes in South Korea, London and New York. I found the idea of us carrying the places we have lived deeply moving and the way he represents them delicate and touching. From the rubbing he made of his childhood home I was hooked. The show made you slow down and reflect. At the heart of the exhibition was a tunnel of spaces from his houses and flats made of diaphanous material. From the installation photographs I had assumed they were neon but they are much subtler than I expected. I loved the light effect within them but also the attention to detail like this electric plug. Reading the blurb I discovered he has measured all the spaces he has lived in in order to carry them with him and reproduce them. I loved the blend of imagi...

Disorientating exhibition at Tate Modern looking at the pioneers of electronic art. It was too much for me as I suspected it would be. Too many flashing lights and playing with perception.   The labels were quite convoluted plus hard to read with the flashing and I just couldn’t engage. I did like Jesus Rafael Soto’s “Cardinal” which hung rods in front of lines to appear 2D from the front, although 3D in reality, and Lilliane Lijn’s “Bride” however I just couldn’t stay very long in any of the installation style rooms. Oh well I tried! Closed 1 June 2025 Reviews Times Guardian Telegraph Evening Standard  

Welcome return of Louise Bourgeois’s giant spider sculpture to Tate Modern to mark 25 years since it was the first art work to greet visitors to the then newly opened gallery. I don’t remember seeing the work at the time so this was a lovely opportunity to fill that gap. It suits the space on the bridge of the Turbine Hall beautifully. This is a lovely way to mark the anniversary. Entitled “Maman” I hadn’t realised the sculpture includes a sack of eggs which seems to give it an infinite future. Closes 25 August 2025

Exuberant exhibition at Tate Modern looking at the life and art of the performance artist Leigh Bowery. I’ve always been intrigued by Bowery’s work, focused on his own body, since discovering the wonderful portraits of him by Lucien Freud and here it was laid out in rooms designed to look like his home and the clubs he ran and frequented. There was an interesting mix of costumes, archive material and photographs and paintings of him so it represented both him as an artist and as a muse. You got a real sense of him as a person and of a group of friends. It was interesting to have already done the Outlaws show at the Fashion and Textile Museum which covered similar territory. Like that show it was also a good one for people watching as many of the punters seemed to come from a similar world. Closes 31 August 2025 Reviews Times Guardian Telegraph Evening Standard  

Incomprehensible exhibition at Tate Modern on the art of experimental artist Mike Kelley. I’m sorry I tried but I just didn’t understand this show. I always find it hard to engage with conceptual art with a performance element in a static exhibition but it can work if well explained. I must admit I’d already done two exhibitions and an installation at the gallery so I probably wasn’t at my most receptive. That said I found the labels almost unreadable as they didn’t always explain where the work had been show nor really what it represented. I never found the overriding description for the last room so was left very confused. On the whole I didn’t find the work that attractive but that said I liked this revolving screen with projected images and I might try the wax tower with my Christmas candles! Closes 9 March 2025 Reviews Times Guardian Telegraph Evening Standard

Small exhibition at Tate Britain highlighting work by Helen Chadwick in their Artists’ Rooms series. This show complimented the Zanele Muholi, which was also on at the gallery, as it had some similar subject matter and for way the artists used their own body. I must admit I found the work hard to engage with. I think any one piece in a different context would have been interesting but I didn’t respond to it as a train of thought. I did however rather like these sculptures made by Chadwick and a fellow, male artist peeing in the snow then making a cast of the shape made. I won’t be rushing out and trying it though! Closes 8 June 2025

Impressive installation at Tate Modern by Mira Lee. This is the latest commission for the Turbine Hall and I’d not thought I’d like it as, from photos, it looked like pieces of hanging meat but it was much more complex with the ‘skins’ being made on site via water falling on material via a turbine and then drying the pieces here before hanging them. I assume over the course of the show the space will become more densely hung so I’ll definitely be back for another look. Reading the commentary the piece is remarkably nuanced with various references to industrial processes including those which originally went on in that space and it reuses features of the building such as a crane. Closes 16 March 2015 Reviews Times Guardian Telegraph

Interesting exhibition at Tate Modern looking at the art of South African artist, Zanele Muholi. The work was mainly photographic documenting LGBTQIA+ life in South Africa to raise awareness of injustices and create positive visual histories. For this the artist often uses their own body. The work was presented via series of works. I loved the series Faces and Phases of Black lesbians, transgender and gender non-conforming people shown along two opposite walls of the gallery and the section on queering public space where they photograph people in spaces they would not have been allowed in under Apartheid. I was most struck though by their sculptures particularly this one which appears to balance on its toes. Closed 26 January 2025 Reviews Times Telegraph Evening Standard    

Vibrant exhibition at Tate Modern looking at the Blue Rider artists based around Munich in the early 20th century. I knew and liked the work of a number of these artists and love this period of art just before the First World War but it was fascinating to see them presented as a group. I did wish I’d done an introductory lecture on the show as I found the information available in the show was a bit disjointed. There was a new idea of charging £5 for a comprehensive small booklet on the show but I rather resent having to pay for that level of narrative. Criticism over, I loved the art which felt like the Bloomsbury Group on acid having discovered spirituality. I would have liked to know a bit more about the relationships between the artists and how they lived. My favourite pieces were where they painted each other and the world around them. The female artists came out of the show particularly well with Munter leading the field. I was interested to see her photography included in ...

Surprisingly good exhibition at Tate Modern on the art of Yoko Ono. It is difficult to show conceptual art in exhibitions, particularly when there is a performance or interactive element, but this exhibition succeeded in giving a flavour of events and planting their ideas in a way that does make you think and participate. The show worked in participation well. Some of the actions were taken up enthusiastically, like the room at the end where you were invited to take a blue pen and add to it and tables to play all white chess, but some others weren’t so popular like the being in a bag or the shaking hands through a hole in a wall. I felt a bit sorry for the attendants with the latter two. I loved the idea of Ono’s instruction pieces putting out an idea for artists and us to take up in some way. I thought I’d find the ‘peace’ pieces a bit vapid but actually I found them simple and profound. I loved the two acorns she sent to every world leader to plant for peace on her marriage to...

Interesting exhibition at Tate Modern on the 20th century American artist Philip Guston. I’d done a course on Guston the week before and was very glad I had as his career was so varied I’m not sure I would have understood the trajectory of it just with the commentaries although they were good. You hardly believe that one artist did all the work as each period is so different. The show is chronological, starting with early pieces inspired by contemporary European art and the early Italian Renaissance. I was fascinated to see how his art developed purely from looking and that he had no formal training. There was a good section of his mural work which combined good archive material with easel works of the same period to show their style. I think these pieces were my favourites as they did remind me of Italian frescos. The period post Second World War saw him move into abstract expressionism along with other American artists. I never respond well to this type of art but it was wel...

Impressive and beautiful installation at Tate Modern by El Anatsui. Speaking to ideas of trade, slavery and colonialism, the meaning is fairly obvious from looking but there are also good, simple explanations of the three works or acts as Anatsui calls them. The three pieces fill the space and work from every angle. Make sure you walk round them and look for the sweet spot where the middle disjointed work becomes the Earth.   I like the sense that there is craft behind the work as well as being monumental! I’ll be back to see it again. Closes 14 April 2024 Reviews Guardian Telegraph Evening Standard  

Interesting exhibition at Tate Modern of work by 36 contemporary African photographers who reimagine Africa’s place in the world. Arranged around three themes, identity and tradition, counter histories and imagined futures, the show discussed how there is no single history of Africa and the effects of colonialism. From the majestic portraits of Nigerian monarchs by George Osodi you were pulled into the images and ideas. I’m not sure I grasped all of them, and at times it became quite philosophical, but it certainly made me think. Images which stood out for me included Edson Chagas’s take on passport photos using traditional Bantu masks which partly spoke to the export of such masks to Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries. I loved the section on the role of studio photography to create identity and the juxtaposition of James Barnor’s work which had been featured at the Serpentine with more contemporary work by Ruth Einika Ossai picking up similar themes. The librarian in me ...

Thought provoking  exhibition at Tate Modern examining the relationship between photography and painting in modern and contemporary art. This is a topic that fascinates me and the show introduced me to lots of new ideas. From the first quote from Susan Sontag “The painter constructs, the photographer discloses” I was hooked even though a lot of the show argued against the statement. I loved the use of quotes to plant ideas, my favourite being this David Hockney one. “A photograph is a fraction of a second, frozen. So, the moment you’ve looked at it for even four seconds you are looking at it for longer than the camera did”. The show looked at painters who use photographs and who imitate them as well as at photographers who reference paintings. It also looked at how photographs can be constructs not just paintings and how some paintings pretend to record a moment. I think my favourite room was the one on photography as painting and I recognised a number of the photographers...