Birthday trip to London

As has become traditional for birthdays, we took a trip up to London to catch some of the latest exhibitions at the Tates. We saw a great ones on orientalism and photography, and a truly terrible one of Cy Twombly's work. Poor aesthetic, ugly² technique, indecipherable content - very much "travelling up my own arse" territory. Still, it was a great day out. And some photos too ...

The new Martin Creed at Tate Britain. Basically, every hour for half an hour a succession of runners sprint down the main axis of the gallery. Dodging visitors and being illegally photographed along the way. The work is supposed inspired by a just-before-closing-time sprint Creed and his friends did around a catacomb of priestly remains in somewhere I can't remember. Creed wanted to capture to the joie de vivre that this sprint instilled. I know exactly what he means. And the piece certainly grabbed the attention of visitors to the gallery.




Fun with murals outside of Tate Modern.



C and Ann: our London fellow art lover.



A fantastic interactive light-and-music installation just outside the Royal Festival Hall. It consisted of about 36 (6x6) pillars with LEDs on one side of them. The LEDs responded to electronic music that's being played, and there appeared to be a weaker interaction with people walking around the pillars. Anyway, as an aesthetic experience it was absolutely brilliant.