Just for the Craic

There is a bloody great crack in the floor of the Tate Modern and it is a piece of art. Discuss.

Well is it art? Before I read the leaflet the gallery provided I thought I would jot down my own thoughts and compare them both at the end. Just a private experiment to see whether or not I ‘get it’.

I used to think that while portraits and landscapes were literal representations of what the artist saw (abstracts, surrealism and the like aside), modern art concealed some sort of code that needed to be broken. I realised after some time that I was probably wrong on both counts. Portraits often contained more about the subject - or the artist’s view of them - than a photograph ever could. Then there could be an additional subtext driven by the politics surrounding the individual as well as the artist’s own agenda and/or own emotional wellbeing. I’m not so sure about traditional landscapes, as I am not much of a fan and will walk past them fairly quickly, but I am sure that the same applied here.

So it was actually these ‘literal representations’ that would conceal some hidden message, whereas with Modern Art, a blob of paint may just be a blob of paint. Despite what the artist, critics or pseuds would have you believe, it may be nothing more than an adventure in pigment, unusual medium or self expression. But I relish the controversy, the arguments, the self importance and the arrogance of it all. Far more fun than just finding out that the reason that some obscure noblemen ended up a big nose and buck teeth in his portrait was because he was sleeping with the artist’s wife.

So what about the crack? If the official meaning that is attributed to it is that it is ‘…emphasising the division in society in religion, politics, gender, race, affluence, power etc...’ then that’s all too obvious and would be a shame.

Personally, I saw it as artistic vandalism on an enormous scale – but in a good way. Banksy and Keith Haring were underground heroes of the eighties and nineties before their works of graffiti were adopted by the ‘legitimate’ art world. However the architect behind the crack (like Tracy Emin and Damien Hurst, I cannot regard anyone that sub-contracts their art as an artist) has been commissioned to damage the Turbine Hall floor. So that legitimacy has been automatically handed to them, rather than needing to be earned.

But I am no less impressed. It is a visual feast – juddering across the floor from one end of the hall to the other before it meets with a frosted glass wall and is transformed into a translucent reflection of itself disappearing into another dimension. The work is as much about watching the other viewers and their reactions to what they see. Some people are simply dismissive and take the opportunity to ridicule and deride its existence, spouting tired old platitudes about how it is a pointless waste of money and so on. Others laugh and joke about falling down the gap as they collectively shuffle along in tiny steps as they trace its angular progress. I have started to learn how to draw, and I now regret that I did not use it as the subject for one of my drawing exercises, as one or two student types were obviously doing.

The ‘genuine’ reasons behind its inception are an irrelevance. Like many before and after me, I simply enjoyed it. So on that basis, I won’t bother reading the leaflet and finding out what I should have thought of it.

It’ll only disappoint…

A walk on the wrong side

Following a business meeting in London I decided to drop in to the Tate Modern to see the current exhibit in the Turbine Hall (more on what I saw another time...) But rather than struggle back to Liverpool Street Station on the Underground, I chose to make my way back from the gallery on foot. However it was 5pm and the pavements were as crowded as I imagined the tube platforms would have been, and I seemed to be constantly walking in the path of other people. If I veered towards the road, I ran the risk of being clipped by a bus or lorry. The other side of the pavement meant having to avoid people blindly emerging from their workplaces or skulking round pub doorways having a cigarette (DAMN that smoking ban!)

Still, I bravely ploughed on, relying on my increasingly out of date mental map of East London to guide me. A few years back I had the ability to stagger from one pub to the next on autopilot, but now my trips to London are so infrequent that I have accepted that entire roads of buildings are demolished and replaced between visits. The Foster Gherkin wasn’t there one moment and the next it stood there in all its glass fronted retro lava lamp glory, complete and occupied. And it occurred to me that in the same way that one inevitably becomes like ones parents, I had become the very thing that I hated when I was a London commuter - a tourist with no idea which way to walk.

If you work in London, you may have noticed that shop names are becoming more literal. ‘Pret a Manger’ seems quite subtle when compared to EAT! barking at you to buy its sandwiches and cheap, nasty coffee. Got me thinking as to what other names you could come up with. You could earn your money at WORK, go for a beer at GET DRUNK, buy a kebab at VOMIT before going to the TOTALLY FAIL TO GET OFF WITH SOMEONE TONIGHT nightclub. Let us hope they don’t rebrand the public lavatories in the same way.

(The irony of the fact that I used to hang around a lot in the Virgin Megastore has just dawned on me…)

Back to my journey home, and my sense of direction is failing fast – surely I’ve walked past that Starbucks twice already? Hang on – just because there are only two branches in the whole of East Anglia doesn’t mean you’re lost. Remember that this is London so there are Starbucks everywhere. EAT! shouts out at me once again, just to prove the point.

I’m in luck. I recognise Aldgate and push my way through a crowd of people just standing around. Probably waiting for a guided tour of historic London landmarks such as Weatherspoons, McDonalds and Boots.

A few minutes and I’m back at the station. Exhausted but relieved to be almost home save for the train journey I give in to the temptation of a freshly baked pastry and climb on board. Balancing my laptop on an almost pointless pedestal table, I begin to construct this entry. Train departs on time, so I’ll be home by 9pm in time for Torchwood.

Two minutes later there’s an announcement: “We apologise for the delay – this is due to a passenger pulling the communication cord on the train in front.” Should've made that pastry last...