Clarissa Blog - I went to London

I went to London

Sun, Feb 13 2005 @ 22:53 // Category: Life & Me // 11 comments

today.

To see Joseph Beuys. As announced previously. While I was there I found out that they will have an August Strindberg exhibition starting in a few days. So I'm gonna have to go back for that. They had the catalogue already and I really liked the paintings especially (and btw I think Katja & Tobias should come see it with me *hint hint*). Had I known this earlier I could've combined Beuys and Strindberg of course. But I did also want to meet up with Ian again and he's leaving for the Philippines tomorrow.

Apart from the marvellous Tate, London was horrible as always. I stupidly agreed to meet Ian at Leicester Square. They had Chinese New Year celebrations going on there so it was about 5 times as packed as usual and it was an absolute fucking nightmare. I really truly hate London. Well, I hate parts of it, and I don't particularly appreciate the rest of it.

So I'm glad I don't live in London. Which I don't, for I live in Brighton. Brighton is marvellous. The only major drawback is that the Tate Modern is in London, not Brighton. I really rather like the Tate Modern and could easily imagine going there much more often if it didn't involve travelling to London (well actually going to the Tate Modern only isn't so bad as one can avoid the masses, but it still costs a lot of money... )

Let's talk Modern Art some more. Ian wasn't ideal company for a modern arts museum. I thought he wanted to come along because he was interested, but turns out he only came cuz I'd suggested it. He's one of the typcal "that is art? I can do that! I'mma become rich too!" people. He made some other comments which kinda annoyed me. He was only ever interested in the technical details of stuff. He wasn't too taken with Beuys either (which I saw coming as soon as he'd made a few of his comments). Having said that, I am not a huuuge fan of Beuys either, but I felt I had to see it. And it was certainly interesting and, um... enriching? One does not have to agree with someone to learn from someone. Ja.

I also dragged Ian to see the most amazing Lilith by Anselm Kiefer and he was duly impressed, tho not as much as myself (again). It's such an incredible painting. I also found a book about Kiefer where there were many more works that I really liked. Unfortunately it didn't contain Lilith and still cost £37, so I refrained from adding it to my collection. But I have now officially discovered Kiefer as one of my favourite artists and will have to do some more research on him. Did you know *looks at Katja* that a lot of his work is inspired by Celan's Death Fugue?

So ja I like Anselm Kiefer. I could add much more about him but most people here will find that very boring. I love modern art tho. Not all of it, but a lot of it. I have for instance never much appreciated Picasso (or the cubists in general) and I won't pretend to even if it's an almost blasphemous thing to say. I would never pretend to like or understand something just because it's fashionable or so well known that one is supposed to.

But there is a whole lot of modern art that I really really love, for many various reasons. Either on a purely aesthetic level ("that is beautiful!"), or because it triggers something in me & gets me thinking or I can relate to it. I can't explain it and I would never be able to write an art review (and I was always very crap in history of art where we had to analyze works of art) but I am glad I can appreciate it - for purely selfish reasons I guess.

Yeah. The end. I need to go.

People say...

I wanna live in London.