Sonia Delaunay and more at Tate Modern

I took a week's holiday in July to use up some of my annual allowance and to give me something of a break before my main holiday in November. I had no plans for the day other than to do something in London.

As it happened, I had to pop into our Kings Cross office to collect something that I had printed so I set off for there first. On the train I checked the Arts Fund app for somewhere to go and it suggested the Sonia Delaunay exhibition at the Tate Modern. So I had a plan.

The first thing to do was to walk to Tate Modern from Kings Cross, a modest trek of around 4km. The suggested route would have taken me over Blackfriars Bridge but I was on holiday and so I took the slightly longer route and crossed the Thames on the Millennium Bridge which lifts my spirits every time that I use it. The novelty had not yet worn off and was showing no signs of doing so.

I knew absolutely nothing about Sonia Delaunay beforehand and relied on the exhibitions popularity as the reason for going. I quickly learned that her works were all about colours and the way that they work together. This preoccupation with form rather than subject mean that her works usually had the feel of abstract art even when they were of specific things.

The style of her work changed little over her long career (and there is nothing wrong with that) but there were significant changes in form and the exhibition included paintings, fabrics, posters that varied in size and completion from character sketches for a ballet through to three very large murals for an exhibition, one of which is shown below.

I never know how long an exhibition is going to take me so I first went around the eleven rooms at some speed to gauge what was there and where best to spend my time. I then went back to the beginning, not a great distance in a straight line, and went through it all again looking in more detail at the displays that had caught my eye the most the first time round.

It also enabled me to focus my surreptitious photographing on just my favourite objects thus reducing the risk of being caught and, in the worst case scenario, being forced to delete the photos I had taken (it happened to me in a theatre once).

My main problem was the guide seated in the gap between the final two rooms, both of which had things that I wanted to photograph. I hung around there for some time and eventually took the picture above of designs for magazine covers when somebody conveniently engaged the guide in conversation and stood between us while doing so.

There was much to like in the exhibition. My favourite room was that covering her work with fabrics and fashion which included a bow-tie that I would be very happy to wear. My favourite piece was in the room before it and is the picture at the top of somebody trying on some of Sonia Delaunay's clothes in her front room which she had also decorated.

I found the exhibition very enjoyable and I was grateful to Art Fund for pointing me to something that I would otherwise have let slip past.

The main exhibition took me something just over an hour to go around and then it was time for some coffee and cake. The usual argument that the profits went to the Tate kicked-in and justified the cake.

I had plenty of time left in the day so I decided to wander around some of the free exhibitions.

I walked around these even faster looking for things that made an immediate impression rather than trying to take it all in. I love free museums and galleries precisely for this reason.

I was delighted to see the Russian posters back. A few years ago they had been in their own space, Red Star Over Russia, in Room 11 on the fifth floor but the last few times I had been to the Tate they were not on display, or were well hidden.

Another nice surprise was the little room of architectural oddities by Alexander Brodsky and Ilya Utkin. I felt that there was something of Philippe Druillet about them in their scale and oddness, at least that was the closest reference point that I had. Most of their works were posters and there was this one wonderfully industrial model.

The surreal exhibition surprised me in two ways; I learned that I do not, as a rule, like surrealism when I thought that I did and I also learned that I like Picasso when I thought that I did not.

Hence this photo of a Picasso piece.

One of the obvious things to like about the Tate and that is the scale of the place. It would be fun to walk around even if there was no art in it. But there was art, and lots of it.

In a fairly random stroll across the floors that seemed to have free exhibitions I saw some classic works by Warhol and Lichtenstein and collections of things that I presume was sculpture.

I also ventured out on to the smokers' balcony for its views of the City. A lot of people had the same idea that they really ought to designate this a photographers' zone and ban the smokers!

On the way out I looked at the model of the new extension and then ventured outside to see it taking shape. Actually the shape had been taken and it was now being finished and filled. It was originally due to open for the Olympics in 2012 but the best guess I can find on the internet for the actual opening date is "2016". Let's hope that it is worth the wait, my guess is that it will be.

I have been to the Tate Modern many times, sometimes just in passing or in a lunch break, and it has excited me every time. That is why I keep going there.

Matisse Cut-Outs at Tate Modern

Matisse Cut-Outs at Tate Modern was probably THE "must see" exhibition of the Summer in London and despite being fully aware of this is still took me until almost the end of its long run to find the time to go to see it. And then I had to take a day off and combine it with an evening event to make space for it.

I went in with few preconceptions as I claim no great knowledge of painting and while I had heard of Matisse I could not name anything by him or even describe his style.

My original plan was to go there for 2pm but when I went to buy tickets that morning the earliest slot that I could get was at 4pm, so I went for that. That still left plenty of time for the exhibition before moving on to the theatre, even allowing two and a half hours for the tour, which was how long Paul Klee took last year.

I arrived not long after 3pm, as intended, and started with a coffee and some cake in preparation for spending a long time on my feet.

The exhibition opened by showing how Matisse got in to cut-outs almost by accident. He first used them to plan his paintings, e.g. when doing a still-life he could arrange the objects on the canvass to see how best to position them. From there they grew to become the picture. This step was encouraged when ill health made painting difficult.

Being cut-outs there was a strong physical element to the work even though they were two-dimensional. Looking at the pieces carefully revealed  the many pin holes created as the pieces were tried in different positions, the way that the pictures will built up with layers of colour and the way that the pieces of paper were cut and torn to work and rework the shapes.

Broadly speaking there were two kinds of work, those that relied solely on shape and colour, such as the large piece above and those that portrayed something physical, such as the work on the right.

This is The Creole Dancer from 1950 when Matisse was 81, he died just three years later. It stood an impressive 2m tall by just over 1m wide and grabbed my attention. It was my favourite piece by some distance.

What the exhibition made up for in scale of the works it lacked in the variety. There was no great progression in Matisse's style and little change in his subject matter. It was not quite "if you've seen one, you've seen them all" but the familiarity between the works made it a quicker journey than it was for Paul Klee. I had allowed two and a half hours and it took one and a half. That was still a fair chunk of time and it was still a good exhibition, it just paled a little in comparison to Klee.

That comparison continued in to the shop which was packed with Matisse goods (I pushed the boat out and bought a postcard of The Creole Dancer) but at the end of the Klee run it looked like Old Mother Hubard's cupboard.

The slight misgivings were only slight and Matisse Cut-Outs was a jolly fine exhibition. It was informative, engaging and, at times, striking.

Paul Klee at Tate Modern

Paul Klee is one of those artists that I had bumped in to a few times (notably in Hannover earlier this year), had liked each time that I had done so but had never seen that much of his work to understand its range and development.

That meant that the Paul Klee – Making Visible exhibition at Tate Modern was an obvious thing to see.

I like Tate Modern anyway and used the visit to the exhibition to approach it via the Millennium Bridge and to start the experience with coffee and cake in the sixth floor cafe with its excellent views over the river towards the ever-changing City.

The exhibition was spread across seventeen rooms on the third floor. Unlike the rest of the Tate, photography was not allowed (though there were the usual iPhone miscreants) and so I've lifted some pictures from various websites instead.

The exhibition was structured chronologically which was interesting in two ways. Firstly, it gave us the context of his work which included the distractions of both the First World War and the reign of Adolf Hitler. Secondly, it showed that Klee did not have phases as such but kept returning to similar themes and structures throughout his life.

Klee is probably most known for his colourful blocks of paint that were used in simple abstracts and also in landscapes. There were a few pictures like this in the exhibition but they were very much in the minority.

The variety of the work surprised me with, it seemed at times, every piece produced using a different technique.

Given such a wide range of styles and subjects to choose from it is hard to pick some pictures that are representative of Klee's work (especially as I was unable to photograph any) so I have just picked ones that I liked instead.

This tangled mess of blue and black lines hit me as soon as I entered the room because of its use of simple colour and abstract shapes. It was only when I got quite close to it that the abstract lines took the form of (benevolent) witches.

My usual judge of an exhibition is the time it takes me to pass through it and Paul Klee took two and a half hours. That is a fair reflection both of the amount of material in the exhibition (words and pictures) and of the amount of time that I spent on each one.

There was much in the exhibition that I did not like, or understand, and that is a positive too as it shows that Klee was experimenting and trying difficult things. It is easy to like simple works of art but it is not very satisfying.

There were quite a few pictures that I would gladly have on my wall at home if not for the lack of funds or burglary skills to do so. And the way that they were presented meant that their discovery was always a thrill.

Paul Klee – Making Visible was a rather good exhibition; something for Tate Modern to be proud of and for art lovers to enjoy.

A quick dip in the Tate Modern

Despite my disappointment at Tate Britain a couple of days earlier I took the opportunity of going to the theatre in Southwark to pop in to the Tate Modern.

There was a time, a couple of years ago, when I was working about 500m away and was able to go there many times for my lunchtime break. I've since changed projects and the Tate Modern is now well beyond my normal reach so a chance to revisit was most welcome.

As expected, there has been some change since I was last there. The most significant being the opening of more gallery space in The Tanks. This is off the Turbine Hall on the lower level and is a series of brutal concrete caverns. It's all rather lovely.

In one, projectors played patterns on the walls at each end while the viewers were encouraged to walk between them to make shadows on the walls. The first photo is a (very rare) self portrait.

The main space in The Tanks was given over to a number of short films that were played on loops; this is just two of them. The space works brilliantly with the rough concrete making an ideal screen for the films. I spent quite a bit of time in there.

Venturing in to the main part of Tate Modern I headed up to the fourth floor and the Structure and Clarity.

This was a fairly random choice based mostly on it being one of the free exhibitions and the posters suggested some architectural objects. And that proved to be true.

There were several geometric paintings, Miro probably being the most famous artist on show, and I especially liked this large painting by Henri Matisse. It's called The Snail and while I can see that it is the abstract shapes and colours that I like.

But I also like pictures with less colour.

In the same room is a large grey canvass that is called, simply, Grey (Gerhard Richter). And that's all it is. Grey.

There is also this vaguely black painting by Ad Reinhardt.It looks pretty black here but it actually has a three by three grid of slight variations. Those variations make you stare at the painting to find them and then study them. It looks simple but I love it.

There was a lot more to the exhibition than paintings and I struggled a little to pick just two works to give a true flavour of the exhibition.

I liked the photographs by Geraldo de Barros because they were of things that I take photos of, things like roofs, doors and derelict buildings. I preferred them displayed individually though this montage has a certain impact.

Bricks at the Tate have almost become synonymous with modern art and there a couple of exhibits made from them.

The set of plain bricks set as a rectangular pile had some interest but with only one picture to include here I have gone for the more complex columns by Lebanese sculptor ShSaloua Raouda Choucair that she named Infinite Structure.

I also liked her short stack of unusually shaped metal blocks Poem of Nine Verses.

I have tried in just a few photos to show the range of things on show and to give some idea of their variety and why they sparked something within me.

And the news gets better. Tate Modern is a large and exciting gallery which is about to get larger and more exciting. The thirties power station is growing a twisted tower that will roughly double the size of the complex. With the depressing news of arts being cut across the country it is good to hear that they are striving at the Tate Modern.

A day in London

I've been burning the remains of my holiday entitlement for 2010 by taking a few odd days off in March, one of which was a reasonably aimless stroll around London.

And, like several such strolls, it featured the walkway along the South Bank of the Thames and a visit to the Tate Modern which lives there.

But the first port of call was Somerset House on the North Bank.

In the dim and distant part I stayed for a few months in the incredibly cheap, and justifiably so, Hotel Strand Continental that back on to Somerset House so its a part of London that I know, or knew, fairly well.

Somerset House has been done up since then and now boasts a courtyard flush with fountains that vary their height as the mood takes them which makes it a place that you can just sit for a while and watch them play. Luckily there is a cafe there too so the watching can be enhanced with a Latte.

Crossing the Waterloo Bridge to the South Bank takes you past the iconic National Theatre.

Its a building that attracts a wide range of reactions and comparisons to concrete boxes but I love it. One of the great strengths of concrete is that you can make any shape that you like with it and the architects of the National Theatre have done just that in a marvellous way.

The walk to the Tate Modern is a treat, the outside of it is a delight and the interior is joy.

There is much to enjoy here but my favourite gallery is this one, Red Star Over Russia, in Room 11 on the fifth floor. Wonderful stuff.

The other reason for going to the Tate Modern is to savour the view from the top floor where they have conveniently placed a (very expensive) bar.

I walk though London regularly, both for work and for fun, and it still stimulates me every time that I do so. It's a city that can be old and young, quiet and lively, brash and squalid, provocative and secretive, and all sorts of other things too. None of these aspects is any more natural or important than the others, it's the mix that makes London a great city.

Popping in to the Tate Modern

Working close to the Tate Modern is magic!

I loved the building when it was the disused Bankside Power Station and its sympathetic restoration has made it one of the jewels on the South Bank along with the Oxo Tower, National Theatre and South Bank Centre.

I have made the pilgrimage from London Bridge to Waterloo many times but it still excites me every time.

Even on a quick dash for a sarnie from the Rosie Tate Cafe (cheap, cheerful and recommended).

The building's impressive beauty comes from the indomitable dark brick, long sleek windows and the little touches of decoration that belie its strictly industrial heritage.

I want to live there.

On the longer lunch breaks I get to look inside too.

It's normally a quick visit to just one or two galleries. This quickness whets the appetite but does not completely satisfy so it's worth revisiting the same galleries a week or so later.

My usual destination is Level 3 and headlong in to modern paintings, such as the room filled with vast canvasses by Cy Twombly with loops and swirls of dripping red paint. Vision On meets Dexter.

I also like the monochrome (or mostly monochrome) paintings by the likes of Barnett Newman whose 1950 piece Eve is solid blood red (again!) with a sliver of burgundy down the right-hand side. Simple but gorgeous.

It can be easy to take London's treasures for granted at times, in a way that tourists don't, but when they are as close, accessible and rewarding as the Tate Modern then going there easily becomes a habit.