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LONDON: Walk into the Tate Modern and expect to be surprised -- at first surprise coated with skepticism (“this” is not a museum!) and then finally, a relieved and almost gleeful sort of surprise. There is nothing “museum-like” about the Tate Modern Museum. Museums -- and here let me add the caveat that I am originally from New York -- are supposed to have lines and tickets; they are supposed to have objects and works enclosed in glass with beefy bouncers making sure you keep your distance; they are not supposed to allow photography. Museums, in short, are supposed to ensure that art remains divorced from the public sphere.
Ironic really. Given that museums -- especially public museums -- initially brought art to the public sphere. Art, till then the domain of royalty and nobles, was usurped by a new public culture -- what Habermas calls the “bourgeois public sphere.” Along with art which made its way to private exhibitions, the bourgeois public sphere was enabled by private individuals, that is, middle-class people like merchants and lawyers, who came together to exchange news and ideas, giving rise to new cultural institutions, such as newspapers, clubs, lending libraries and public theatres (Habermas, 1989 [1962]; Blanning, 2002).
Also interestingly, a pioneering role in the emergence of this new public sphere was played by London -- where the court dominated culture much less than it did in France at the same time. Public interest in art grew rapidly during the eighteenth century, aided by an expanding print culture, which allowed the circulation of high-art images to an ever larger audience (Pears, 1988; Clayton, 1997).
In short, art -- for the first time -- became accessible.
Since then, however, museums have begun to play a reverse role -- effectively removing art from the public sphere. You must stand in a queue, buy a ticket to be able to see “art.” You must not photograph “art.” You must hoo and hah pretending to be all knowing, for society to give you a stamp of cultural approval -- itself rooted in the fact that “art” instead of being an everyday phenomenon, is cordoned off as an elite domain.
My point is that the Tate Modern, refreshingly, makes a huge deviation from preserving and showcasing “art” in the now conventional sense. There are no lines. No tickets. A Picasso hangs next to an unknown Sudanese artist. There are no beefy bouncers. There is no rope or glass frame separating you from the art. You can take photos. Art, is in the public domain -- as it should be.
Because of all of the above, I was able to take pictures of the Surrealist exhibit on at the Tate Modern. Here is some vicarious cultural goodness, plebeian style.
Max Ernst, Celebes 1921
The central rotund shape in this painting derives from a photograph of a Sudanese corn-bin, which Ernst has transformed into a sinister mechanical monster. Ernst often re-used found images, and either added or removed elements in order to create new realities, all the more disturbing for being drawn from the known world.
Salvator Dali, Metamorphosis of Narcissus, 1937
This painting is Dalí's interpretation of the Greek myth of Narcissus. Narcissus was a youth of great beauty who loved only himself and broke the hearts of many lovers. The gods punished him by letting him see his own reflection in a pool. He fell in love with it, but discovered he could not embrace it and died of frustration. Relenting, the gods immortalised him as the narcissus (daffodil) flower.
This work is generally considered one in a series of Black Triptychs which followed the suicide of Bacon’s lover, George Dyer. Dyer appears on the left and Bacon is on the right.
Pablo Picasso, The Three Dancers 1925
The jagged forms of Three Dancers convey an explosion of energy. The image is laden with Picasso's personal recollections of a triangular affair, which resulted in the heart-broken suicide of his friend Carlos Casagemas. Love, sex and death are linked in an ecstatic dance.
Francis Picabia, Portrait of a Doctor c.1935–8
Francis Picabia painted Portrait of a Doctor in 1935 but substantially reworked it shortly after. These two separate campaigns of work exemplify his ability to change styles in quick succession and to challenge directly the accepted notions of continuities in an artist's production.
Max Ernst, Pietà or Revolution by Night 1923
Max Ernst's Pietà or Revolution by Night is typical. The painting replaces the traditional scene of Mary clasping the body of Christ with an image of the artist himself, held by his father. A staunch Catholic, Ernst's father had denounced his son's work, and the painting is often seen as rising out of their troubled relationship, although - like dreams - it resists precise analysis.
Salvador Dalí, Autumnal Cannibalism 1936
Painted just after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, this work shows a couple locked in a cannibalistic embrace. They are pictured on a table-top, which merges into the earthy tones of a Spanish landscape in the background.
