Tate Modern Museum - Poetry & Dream Wing - Essay Example

Tate Modern Museum - Poetry & Dream Wing Introduction The Tate Modern Museum is the one of London’s national museums. It is situated on the south bank of the Thames and was constructed in 2000. The Tate Modern Museum is now a powerful, remarkable, and dramatic amalgamation of the new and old architecture offering 10,000 meters of gallery space. It is housed in the earlier Bankside Power Station and was Fig. 1 Poetry and Dream Wing1 initially planned by architect, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. It is a one of the most-visited contemporary art galleries in the world, with approximately 4.7 million visitors each year. It’s noted that “Although the impressive ground-floor galleries are dedicated to the display of contemporary works, they read as modernist museum spaces.”2 This recognition indicates that the museum itself functions more than merely a space for hanging and featuring of art, but actively participates in the art creation process. This essay specifically examines the Tate Modern’s ‘Poetry and Dream’ wing within the context of a variety of evaluative criteria. Analysis Curatorial Considerations In examining the Poetry and Dream wing, one recognizes the strong significance of the museum’s curator. Curators are accountable for the feel of Tate Modern Museum and the conceptual presentation of artworks within the wing. The architects in the wing must direct all the interpretations of the constructions they plan, not the artworks housed in them. Like every museum, they require to react and adapt to the numerous kinds of forces shaping the current world. Art museums nowadays face numerous challenges. The ideology and philosophy of the art museum nowadays consists of the implications of increased internationalization. One considers that with the multi-varied artworks implemented in the Poetry and Dream wing reflect many of these concerns. The ‘Poetry and Dream’ gallery wing displays the exhibits thematically, rather than chronologically. Contemporary art is juxtaposed with modern. Though recently it has been re-ordered, it still retains most of the patterns in accordance with the thematic display. The present arrangements provide the viewer an idea of modern art transcending the contemporary, as different movements within art forms fill the transformation. Still, one considers Barker who argues that, “by isolating objects for purposes of aesthetic contemplation, it encourages the viewer to project on to them meanings and values that have no real basis in the objects themselves.”3 Although such ‘fetishism’ as he terms it is a danger of such analysis, this research ahs worked towards drawing tangible and objective connections between curatorial hangings. While the wing is structured thematically, similar to the other wings in the museum, it has a cluster of works that encompass a particular art movement in a specific time period. Poetry and Dream Wing: Surreal and Beyond Room The sizeable room at the heart of the Poetry and Dream wing is dedicated to Surrealism. The displays examine various artists who, in diverse modes, have diverged or responded to associated themes, for example, the world of dreams or the archetypal and unconscious myth. One of the initial paintings visitors come across in this wing is ‘The Uncertainty of the Poet.’ This work was created by Giorgio de Chirico in 1913; he was an artist whose job affected the Surrealists. This particular painting represents body of the women buried up to the neck. Here the Fig. 2 Uncertainty of the Poet4 zeugmatic outcome produces almost immediately an emotion of uneasiness. Another prominent painting in this section of the museum is Giorgio de Chirico’s 1926 surrealist work La Famille du Peintre (The Painters Family). This painting implements oil on canvas. Chirico’s approach towards the past and traditional in this work is vague and ironic. Fig. 3 La Famille du Peintre (The Painters Family) 5 Poetry and Dream Wing: Dark Humor Room Another prominent room featured in the Tate’s Poetry and Dream wing is the Dark Humor room. While this room contains some seminal works, it is more notable for the strong thematic linkages between the works rather than their individual nature. Specifically, this aspect of the Poetry and Dream wing implements four surrealist artists: Marcel Dzama, David Shrigley, Jake Champan, and Louise Bourgeois. While these artists explore different approaches with different techniques, their works featured within this segment of the exhibition achieve a great conformity of style and theme. Of course, one recognizes that the choice of method – drawings – and the specific room theme – surrealist dark humor – is a major linking element in this process. To a great degree it appears that the works in this room were rooted not out of specific similarities between each, but instead, out of a means of achieving a general ambience in the room. This ambience is established both through content and figurative linkages. In great part, many of the works seems to have a different degree of expressive. Fig. 4 below features Louise Bourgeois’ work ‘Birth.’ While the image has surrealistic significance it seems in great part Fig. 4 Birth6 the work’s figurative aspects are what motivated its placement in the context of the room. Specifically, this work is situated adjacent to a work by Jake Chapman. Fig. 5 depicts Chapman’s work ‘Exquisite Corpse’. The Tate notes of this work, “based on a game, developed by the Surrealists from the traditional game of Consequences, called Le Cadavre Exquis, or Exquisite Corpse. The Surrealists game involves a piece of paper, folded horizontally concertina-fashion onto which, in turn, each member of a group draws a part of a body, without being able to see what others have drawn on the paper.”7 Based on the description of creation it seems that Chapman’s work is markedly different than Bourgeois’ in terms of creation methods. Chapman’s Fig. 5 Exquisite Corpse work implements the process of automation where minimal pre-cognition is implemented in the creation of the work.8 In these regards, it seems that Bourgeois’ work is placed adjacent to Chapman’s as they both demonstrate a consideration with the human form. Ultimately, such curatorial placements function to heighten the viewer’s consideration of the pieces through encouraging their comparison. Poetry and Dream Wing: Elements of Chance Another room featured in the Poetry and Dream wing is the Elements of Chance room. The works within this room are grouped together thematically in relation to the theme of chance. One recognizes that this is a prominent theme in many of the works in the Poetry and Dream wing; still, it seems that many of the works in this collection are grouped together not merely because of chance, but because of a certain type of abstract vibrancy. Fig. 6 features Fig. 6 Mediterannee9 Ellsworth Kelly’s Mediterannee. This work specifically implemented chance in the exploration of color combinations. One considers that in large part, such chance is a thematic element of much early 20th century experimental art.10 While many of the other rooms in the Poetry and Dream wing group art within similar cultural background, some of the juxtapositions in this room draw tacit connections between cultural backgrounds. Fig. 7 features Henri Michaux’s Untitled Ink Drawing. This work was created in China in 1961. The Tate notes that, “he spoke of drawing as a release from words: a new language, spurning the verbal.”11 This is significant as it demonstrates that its adjacency to Kelly’s earlier work may partly be based on the curator’s recognition that the two works share a similar pursuit of new forms of expression. One further considers that there is a pronounced significance in these works being from the disparate Eastern and Western cultures. Traditionally, these regions have been interpreted by art historians as largely implementing different influences12, yet their juxtaposition in the context of this exhibit leads the visitor to consider their potential underlining similarities. Fig. 7 Untitled Chinese Ink Drawing13 O’Doherty notes that, “it has been the special genius of our century to investigate things in relation to their context, to come to see the context as formative on the thing, and finally, to see the context as a thing itself.”14 These considerations are not limited to art but also extend to literature where writers, such as Roland Barthes, have emphasized inter-textuality as a primary mode of critical investigation. The recognition in these regards is that a work of art or literature cannot simply be understood singular terms, but must also be examined in the larger contextual context. One notes that the contrast between the Eastern and Western artifacts in this section of the Poetry and Dream wing greatly harken to these notions of inter-textuality and context. While Ellsworth’s work, when interpreted as singular artistic production, could be read in terms of the American canon of abstraction productions, in the context of the Poetry and Dream gallery deeper contexts of meaning are established. The same is true of Michaux’s work. In these regards, the visitor is led to consider the ways that visual abstraction, removed from art-historical influence, can encapsulate elements of human expression. Poetry and Dream Wing: Material Gestures Another room in the poetry and Dream wing is the Material Gestures room. Notably, this room features Jackson Pollocks Summertime: Number 9A, which is contrasted opposite Claude Monets Water-Lilies. Fig. 8 below feature Monet’s work. Additionally, throughout this room Fig. 8 Water-Lilies15 visitors encounter an array of cubist, futurist and vorticist art forms. In display are works ranging from artists such as Picasso and Braque along with Juan Gris and Wyndham Lewis, who attempts to “blast British bourgeois taste” by presenting his perception of the Cuban revolution. At the centre of this section, a connoisseur of art can find a “veritable cornucopia of surreal strangeness” that dazzles while pampering him or her with a variety of aesthetics.16 Included in these are “Autumnal Cannibalism 1936)” and the “Metamorphosis (1937)” by Salvador Dali.17 Again, the section also hosts several surrealistic sculptures, which are arranged in clusters while the pictures are “double – and some triple – hung” to facilitate an aura of “a High Victorian or academic salon hang of the 19th century”.18 Thus, the ‘Poetry & Dreams’ wing, like the name suggests, offers a visitor a wide range of imaginative works that transport him or her into a dream-like world. Conclusion In conclusion, this essay has examined the Tate Modern’s Poetry and Dream wing. Within this spectrum of investigation, a variety of art juxtapositions and hangings have been examined as revealing new elements of both the art and the shifting nature of the museum atmosphere. Art museums require involvement by the increasingly varied practices of modern artists, building latest narratives from the unresolved and complex histories of current culture. The essay has considered that the museums’ jobs of conserving, gathering, displaying and construing art are at the present being reframed in the light of latest art practices and a quickly evolving vision of the relations of art museums and their publics. Ultimately, it seems that with the country’s finest collection of art and with most of the country’s leading artists represented, the Tate Gallery will grow in the present century to attract more number of tourists to get a better understanding of the history of the art and the works of the previous artists. References Barker, E. (1999). Contemporary Cultures of Display. Open University. Barthes, R. (1977). Image/Music/Text. Trans. Stephen Heath. New York: Noonday. Cauman, J. (2001). Inheriting Art: The Impact of Experimental Art, 1909-1936. New York: Hollis Taggart Galleries. Chircho, De G. (1888). Tate Modern. Whimsical Things. [Online] Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/search/Whimsical%20Things. Dixon, G. (2012). Cornucopia of Strangeness. New York: The Telegraph. Print. Durozoi, G. (2004). History of the Surrealist Movement. Translated by Alison Anderson. University of Chicago Press. Ebrey, P, et al. (2000). Taoism and the Arts of China. University of California Press. Ellsworth Kelly Méditerannée. (2012). [Online] Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/kelly-mediterannee-l02465 Exquisite corpse Jake Chapman. (2012). [Online] Available from http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/chapman-chapman-exquisite-corpse-p78455 Louise Bourgeois. Birth 1994. (2012). Available from http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/bourgeois-birth-p77684 O’Doherty, B. (1986). Inside the White Cube. Lapis Press. Street, B. (2010). Letter From London: Tate At Ten. [Online] Available at: http://blog.art21.org/2011/02/07/letter-from-london-being-boring/ Tate Gallery. (1913). The Uncertainty of the Poet. Friends of Art. [Online] Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/de-chirico-the-uncertainty-of-the-poet-t04109 Tate Modern. (n.d). Timeless-London-Attractions. [Online] Available at Tate Modern. (n.d). The Art modern Museum and its upcoming Future. [Online] Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern Wiley, J. & Sons. (2011). A Companion To Museum Studies. [Online] Available at Read More