The Tate Modern

After a couple of days in London we visited the Tate Modern this afternoon before we travelled home on the train. Everyone liked the surrealists and the visit was going swimmingly until we went up to level 5 to see 'States of Flux' and 'Energy and Process'.

It wasn't long before there were mutterings about The Emperor's New Clothes. While I was trying to explain why a pile of clothes might be art, (I was struggling - how do you argue with 'If I did that in my room, would you think it was art, mummy?') my youngest boy went off to find a stool.

We came across him a few minutes later, sitting on his stool, staring at a pair of doors with 'no entry' written on them. As people came into the room where he was sitting they didn't look at the art, they looked at the little boy who was looking at the doors. He probably only sat there for a minute, but a small crowd congregated behind him during that time, pointing and laughing quietly. When he realised he was being watched he stood up, folded his stool and, just as he had observed other people doing, shook his head in apparent wonder saying, 'fabulous, fabulous'.

                                          The 'fabulous' no entry "exhibit."

Of course, there are 'fabulous' artworks at the Tate Modern. One of my favourites is Jackson Pollock's 'Summertime' a painting which I first learned about in an Open University dvd a couple of years ago: it was wonderful to finally see it in real life.