Tate Britain

Went up to London with my friend Catherine to spend the day at the Tate. 

We had an excellent tour from one of their volunteers who showed us some of her favourite pictures.  An Elizabeth I and The Cholmondeley Ladies 1600-10 which were both very appealing.  The Millais Ophelia and then The Deluge as a commentary on the Japan Tsunami.  She was very impressive both from the point of view of her knowledge and also her love of the pictures she chose.  Apparently the volunteers are allowed to make their own choices of paintings to talk about which is most admirable.

We met her again at a curator talk about one of the Tate's Spencers - Zachiarias & Elizabeth - which, although I really like his work, I couldn't get my head round.  We then went to the Watercolour exhibition which was a curate's egg (ie good in parts) - felt that they had lost the plot half way through which was a pity ... then to the Susan Hiller "juxtaposes knowledge derived from anthropology, psychoanalysis and other scientific disciplines with [unimportant] materials like postcards, wallpaper, popular movies and internet postings, balancing the familiar and the unexplained and inviting the viewer to participate in the creation of meaning".  It took a while to get to grips with what she was saying but by the time we got to the Witness 2000 which is an installation of speakers which transmits a wide variety of languages explaining about a encounter with UFOs.  By moving in amongs the installation you get the information coming from all directions and this gave us an opportuntity to become more in tune with her work.  Definitely worth exploring her ouvre further.