Do You Like Bacon?

I went to the Tate Britain yesterday to see a new exhibition of works by the late Francis Bacon (1909-92). He's an artist whose name I've known for years, but whose paintings I haven't seen much in person. Like so many artists, Bacon had a miserable, twisted childhood and it influenced his art. While I can't say I would hang one of his paintings over my mantle (well... maybe I would if I were rich enough to buy one), I did enjoy seeing them and appreciated Bacon's talent and artistry.

I had not been to the Tate Britain since 1982 when it was called the Tate Gallery. I don't recall much about it then except they were so cramped for space; the walls were crowded with paintings from floor to ceiling. Now that they have separated the "British" and "Modern" aspects of the collection into separate buildings in London, there is more space. The original gallery is now called Tate Britain and is the national gallery for British art from 1500 to the present day, as well as some modern British art. Tate Modern, in the former Bankside Power Station on the south side of the Thames, opened in 2000 and now exhibits the national collection of modern art from 1900 to the present day, including some modern British art.

There was a piece of "modern art" at the Tate that really tickled my funny bone. As I was making my way down the museum's marble halls to the Bacon retrospective, a guy ran past me at full speed. I thought maybe he'd lost his tour group or was a chaperon gone awry. But when another guy ran down the hall at full speed a moment later, I realized I must be seeing a "work of art" of some kind. Indeed it turns out what I was witnessing was Martin Creed's Work No. 850. According the Tate web site Work No. 850 is based "on a simple idea: that a person will run as fast as they can every thirty seconds through the gallery. Each run is followed by an equivalent pause, like a musical rest, during which the grand Neoclassical gallery is empty." Seeing people run in the museum struck me as silly and not much of a work of art, but that is only my opinion. It made me wonder what Creed's Works No. 1 through 849 were like.

On a patriotic note: my absentee ballot for the November general election arrived yesterday in the post. I voted when I got home yesterday afternoon and mailed the ballot to New York today at Her Majesty's Post Office. I'm trusting that the envelope will arrive by November 4. The clerk (read: clark) at the PO agreed with my choice for president.