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Tasting
Century City
@
the Tate Modern
By Corinna Lotz
A group of contemporary British artists occupy the central Turbine Hall space, offering up a mix of photography and Tracey Emin's knickers plus school-boy pranks involving an upside down bicycle adorned with photos of bananas and dicks.
Each piece on its own seems an entirely personal view, but taken together we are presented with "artworks" solely preoccupied with the entanglements of image, sex and power. It seems an expression of today's world in which the human body and its intimate moments are things something to be sold and be displayed in exchange for money to gawkers.
This part of the Tate's current displays has no admission charge but how many people will go for the "City experience" offered by the Tate Modern, when the real city of London lies waiting for them outside?
Is Century City more than a taster, a pointer to a multitude of things which might better be pursued elsewhere? Take for example, Tziga Vertov's brilliant film Man with a Camera made in 1929. It is projected on to the wall in the Moscow 1916-1930 section of the show. One of the great films of all times, it really does deserve concentrated viewing, and yet it becomes simply another impression, because who has got the stamina to stand up watching it for well over an hour?
Moscow 1916 - 1930
The revolutionary decade and a half depicted here is a powerful illustration of history in the making. Curator Lutz Becker brings together work by Tatlin, Rodchenko, Popova, El Lissitsky and architects such as the Vesnin brothers to recreate the years of political and cultural transformation in the USSR.
The timeline indicates how the bold spirit of the early 1920s was followed by the cruel destruction of the avantgarde in the 1930s.
The Moscow section is only one of nine cities, so be prepared to spend at least a day and come armed with a form of seating, flask of coffee and sandwiches, because you'll be travelling through 100 years and nine world cities.In that way you can make it worth your £8.50/£6.50 admission price.
Tate Modern until April 29