London: Dec 6: Tate Britain

My afternoon excursion on Monday, December 6, 2010, was to the Tate Britain. I'd visited it twice before (1, 2); this visit was to see the new displays and special exhibitions.

I took a few pictures on this excursion.

One special exhibit I visited showed the contestants for the Turner Prize. As it turns out, I wasn't excited by any of the artists in the running. The neatest thing about the exhibit was actually outside it: a scrolling display of recent tweets about the competition. The winner was to be announced that night, so there was a lot of chatter.

One special exhibit I planned to see was closed--inclement weather over the last week caused such an increase in humidity in those exhibition rooms that they had to close them to do something to the rooms to fix the problem.

I wandered through the Turner section again and found a painting of someplace I'd seen recently in person: the Roman forum and Arch of Titus.

In one display, I spent a while watching a re-enactment of a 1963 interview (printed in Playboy) with Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, and Arthur C. Clarke about what life would be like near the end of the century. I wish I could read/watch the whole thing. I don't see it online.

I wandered through all the new or reconfigured displays (a substantial chunk of the museum), but found only one that interested me this trip: the room contained paintings so heavily painted that they became three-dimensional. Neat stuff.

On the walk back to work, I happened to pass Westminster Cathedral (not the same thing as Westminster Abbey). It was so stunning at night that I had to go in. The inside was respectable but paled in comparison to the churches I saw recently in Rome. The cathedral's most notable feature is that the upper levels (the giant arches, the ceiling, etc.) are made of dark brown--almost black--stone so that it's almost impossible to distinguish the building from what would be a pitch black night sky. It's an odd feeling, looking up and sometimes being unable to determine if there's a roof over your head.