Tate Modern: Ai Weiwei, Gauguin and more

After the London Eye we walked to the Tate Modern, which was really enjoyable. I got a better feel for the city and we stopped into the Purdy/Hicks gallery where Tom Hunter's photography was exhibited. His images, large color prints of environmental portraits and spaces, are breathtaking.

When entering the Tate Modern I was impressed by the contemporary space and monumental size of it. I've never seen anything like Ai Weiwei's Sunflower seeds piece. The vastness of it was enchanting and I was intrigued by the patterning throughout the 100 million ceramic sunflowers, which I later found out was indentations from Ai Weiwei walking through it. The video was extremely important because it cleared up a lot of questions I had. There was a whole village, about 1600 people, that were involved with the project and it took two years to complete. I think overall it speaks to the vastness of the human race. If we were able to interact with the piece it would have had a completely different feel, maybe it wouldn't seem so vast. However, I would have liked to touch some of the sunflower seeds and get a sense of texture.

I am not a fan of Gauguin but I tried to keep an open mind while entering this exhibition. I identified with one of the quotes on the wall, "My artistic centre is in my brian and not elsewhere." I was attracted to the unique and ornate framing of the paintings and I found the drawings to be more interesting than some of the paintings. The Loss of Virginity, a painting of a naked woman with a bird on her finger and a fox or dog by her side caught my attention because of the interesting color palette and subject matter. The composition of Vision of the Sermon led my eye throughout the whole canvas, which I found both successful and enjoyable. I was also attracted to the wooden relief sculptures, they were unique and multi-dimensional, and lacked the muddy color of most of Gauguin's other works. That is something that I could not ignore throughout the whole exhibition- the way he used color bothered me. In almost all of his paintings there were no real highlights and shadows and the muddiness of his color palette made his images fall flat. There was no break, nowhere for my eyes to rest.

Tate Modern was very enjoyable. I was happy to be able to see all the artwork on every floor. Some artists and works that I found inspirational were Jannis Kounellis, Mona Hatoum, John Latham, Robert Smithson, Barbara Hepworth and Gerhard Richter. I was amazed at Rineke Dijkstra's portraits of women after giving birth. I know her work but I have never seen it in person. These images were so powerful, I stopped for a while to take it all in. Lastly, one of my favorite painters is Francis Bacon, I have admired his work for years and I was excited to experience them in person.