All About Art at Tate Modern

Hello my lovelies, how are you? I hope you are doing well and having lots of fun during the weekend. Mine is so relaxing (but not boring!) so far, you cannot believe! I love lazy weekends and Sunday mornings, as they allow you a proper respite from all the stress and frustrations of your working weekend and make you take a breath and begin anew on Monday morning. Taking a walk around the town, cooking, enjoying a nice film at home or at a cinema, yes, weekends were made for this! I feel that I am gushing too much for the weekend in general, so let’s move on to this week’s post about a talk I had the chance to attend at Tate Modern in the middle of the week.

It all started on Monday, when I realised I had too much free time, so I decided to look online for any interesting events happening in London. My search led me to Tate Modern and a talk they held on Wednesday about “Art Essentials: Key Moments in Art”. I was re-assured that one wouldn’t need to have studied art and be a true art connoisseur to attend (and most importantly understand) this talk, so I thought “Why not?” So after my day at the office, the road led me to Tate Modern and I can tell you right now that I was so excited for this!

Tate Modern has a special place in my heart, as visiting it almost 18 months ago, made me realise I wanted to pursue the dream of becoming a blogger and writing all about my favourite places in London and elsewhere. Visiting the exhibition “Soul of the Nation” was a real eye-opener for me and I wanted to share this experience with (literally as it seems now) the whole world! That was the beginning of this blog, my baby, and I’ve never been happier (well until my next big moment that is)!

Regarding this Wednesday, it may not have been an exhibition, but the talk was still extremely interesting. The author of the book “Key Moments in Art” Lee Cheshire gave a gripping and highly entertaining talk about three moments in art taken from the book. As I was leafing through the book, I found that it contained events from the Renaissance all the way to modern times; fifty events that shaped the history of art told in a way that is not boring or dry, but rather easy to remember and informative. I believe this is the key of truly enjoying art; paying attention to the context surrounding a masterpiece, while also celebrating the genius of each master.

The “Art Essetials: Key Moments in Art” talk featured three stories from Lee’s book, three stories that he picked because they made the biggest impression on him. And this is the connection between the Mona Lisa, Picasso, Rembrandt and the Degenerate Art Exhibition held in Munich in 1937. I don’t want to spoil these stories or the book, so if you are even remotely interested, do find and the book and purchase it! It has excellent photography, fascinating tales and a condensed version of the last 600 years of art in about 180 pages. This may not sound doable, but Lee Cheshire did write a fantastic book catering to a wide audience.

Lasting only an hour, the “Art Essentials: Key Moments in Art” talk was everything I wanted out of a Wednesday evening at the Tate Modern. Lee Cheshire, a senior editor and copywriter at Tate, gave a gripping talk and the Q&A session afterwards was short and to the point. The best thing of the night though was – in my opinion – the goody bag for all attendees. For just £15.00 (the price of the ticket), you were given a Tate tote bag, a stationary set with a pen, pencil and eraser, the book in question and a Tate sketchbook. Now this is what I call goody bag!

Part of the Tate series about Art Essentials, this talk was as exciting and informative as you can imagine! I hope I will be able to attend more of these talks in the near future, like the “Art Essentials: Modern Art” in April as I am always interested in improving my knowledge about things I enjoy. As for being in the middle of the working week, I think that this is a good enough reason to shed your professional life away and cultivate your cultural side. After all, learning something new every day is part of life as it is, so why not do something that you can savour at the same time?

Till next time,

Sofia-Maria