Modern Family Day Out

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 28 April 2007 21:34:41

Today Third Party and I met up with my dad and baby bro and did Gilbert and George at the Tate Modern. In fact we didn't just do Gilbert and George we did the whole gallery, and the whole picnic on the grass outside thing as a way of celebrating dad's 60th this weekend.

As the 3 generations wandered around the gallery there was the odd moment of irony like when my dad was advised that he couldn't take a photo of the three of us in the gallery and when Third Party had to go and ask for a ticket that they had retained back (my dad has been known, as with other artists, to incorporate these types of life document into art work).

The Gilbert and George exhibition was an interesting one which had an mixture of enlightening, entertaining and offensive works. Personally it was not their works challenging religion I struggled with; (I could understand these even if I did not agree with all of their content and indeed found two to be amongst the best in the collection), or their more explicit works (which we had to take at turns explaining in an appropriate way to Third Party). It was those pieces which incorporated bodily waste into the theme that I found to be too gross for words.

The rest of the gallery has changed a little again since I last visited and at the moment the Turbine Hall is completely empty, and not open to the public to access at the moment. So all in all if you haven't been for a while I would say it is worth a visit. However, if you are easily offended by images of the male body, bad language, fairly "in your face" reference to sexuality and the subversion of religious imagery I would say that it would probably be best if you didn't try to get to the Gilbert and George exhibition before it closes.