TATE MODERN EXHIBITS
Visiting the Tate on a Saturday is the perfect time because there are children everywhere enjoying art the right way. They camp out with their parents in front of one work of art, get out their complementary art booklet, and then start getting really creative. Their bodies stretched out along the floor so they can get a perspective of the painting from the ground up and focus in on the real art; their crayons can attest to this fact.
Unfortunately, there isn't a moment of calm or rest in what resembles a chaotic circus rather than a church service. People are everywhere and they are moving fast, zooming up and down the escalators, making casual noise, storming past art on their way to the art store to pick out some postcards. No judgment. I almost bought a cardboard ghetto blaster ipod stand with 'real speakers' for my friends' office. If it had looked like a bit more fun to put together I would have bought it.
In the midst of the zoo, when I learned that the Rothko exhibit had ended Feb. 1st, I was disappointed. The Rothko room provided the one moment of peace, distillation and calm from the chaos the last time I visited the Tate. I am going to make my own Rothko room when I move back to Toronto.
Altermodern: Tate Triennial
So off on a boat across to another exhibit. This exhibit was mostly disappointing (but in a good way). I found my replacement for the Rothko room: Gustav Metzger whose Liquid Crystal Environment provides pillows and a carpeted floor to lie on in darkness as his colors gradually shift from projected light sources that make shadows of the spectators as they move in and out of the room. If there hadn't been soft carpet then it just wouldn't have been the same experience. I mainly enjoyed the carpet and pillows and a moment of quiet. I would have happily fallen asleep there.
Metzger charms subtly while most of the other artists try to offend or prove points that are a bit too obvious or theoretically sapped. For example, there is Subodh Gupta's sculpture of a mushroom cloud made of pots and pans. Reminds me of what my brain feels like most days. Then, there is a piece that says "I wish I could have voted for Obama" sign with a life-size toy truck wedged underneath. My favorite part of the exhibit was watching a little boy try to pull the toy truck out from under the sign while his brother pointed at him and yelled for his parents who, like everyone else, seemed not to be too alarmed that he was actually trying to yank the toy from under the so-called 'art.' I think he had the right idea. I was going to help him out or take a picture but having a genuine laugh at a desire so entertaining and sincere was the best art I could have asked for.
My other favorite of the exhibit, besides Metzger, was a 'special deilvery' of "Fedex Large Craft Boxes" by Walead Besht. He sent six boxes with Fed Ex with glass squares in them and put on display the result of the delivery. Some squares are shattered more than others... Brilliant.
C. de la B.
The ballet company C. de la B. left me breathless and exhausted last night. This is Alain Platel's re-versioning of Bach's "Matthew Passion." It's a story about the crucifixion told from the mother's perspective. It's an attempt to restore the word compassion from what it has become, a dirty and condescending word. There are deformed moments in the dancing that require the compassion of the audience. If the audience gives the proper reception then everything is revealed in its beauty, all that is humorous, different, troubled and unwell becomes raw movement and love.
I have never seen so many ideas for movements displayed at the same time and the innovations kept coming. It reminded me of going to a b-boy jam full of great dancers and being exhausted after watching for about half an hour, your brain already having reached saturation point for new ideas in art.
As with any good ballet company, the first solo of the night is done by a b-boy! As soon as he started moving I knew there was at least one b-boy in the cast and in my head I was thinking, "well of course Jesus is a b-boy in a contemporary version of the story." As it turns out there is a bit of Jesus in all the characters as they navigate through their relationships. Nobody 'plays' Jesus. It's not that kind of production. There is no false sense of characters to latch on to. It's not 'just' straight b-boying either. The b-boy prances around and imagines b-boy anew. All of the choreography fits into a particular style of movement even as the dancers display diverse cultural and technical backgrounds as a group. That's what's so brilliant about Platel's vision of dance. Difference works organically out of the dancers backgrounds into a cohesive style front and the relationship between music and dance is pure suture.
The composer of the night is Fabrizio Cassol who has worked with the choreographer, Platel, before. The orchestra appears on stage in bright colored hats and t-shirts on the 'upper floor'. I'm assuming they are the sounds of the heavens: sometimes they play with the enthusiasm of a funk band enjoying themselves and at other times they have the enthusiasm of a working band that imagines themselves to be invisible from the audience in the pit. Both attitudes reflect what I imagine a heavenly orchestra would be like. The singers, however, are fully interactive with the dancers. They dance as well sometimes and smoothly navigate their way through the movements of the other performers.
I became a fan of Claron McFadden, the soprano of the night who has an angelic voice that can only be described as sounding "like butta." Her parents were the children of poor farmers from the South of the United States who moved up North for a better life. She began singing a range of styles of music that include a children's choir, gospel, funk and jazz (this is straight out of an interview with her), and then discovered Bach and Mozart at fourteen. Her idol, however, is Sarah Vaughan. She debated between a career in jazz and classical music, but picked classical because she loves the theatre (and she says she wanted to live a 'disciplined life' - so you can see she picked the ideology of the classical world as well!).
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