Along The Southwark

Our visit to the Tate Modern was redeemed by the ensuing walk along the Southwark, the "other" side of the river, Shakespeare country, and home to many other notables and notable sights. The highest point was Southwark Cathedral, which I'll treat in the next post, but there were many high points. 

The Globe Theater; as I noted in an earlier post, we were groundlings
there for a performance of Merchant of Venice, although neither
of us can remember when exactly nor whether Rachel and Rebecca
were with us...but then we were also in the audience, seated, for
other performances, other years

A poet set up outside the the theater, taking an order from a
young customer

Skyline past Southwark Bridge

Mural of the Bard beneath the bridge

Heading toward the Clink

Now just a museum, of course

All that remains of the bishops' Winchester Palace,
one of the great buildings of Medieval London

Replica of Drake's Golden Hinde, in which he
and his crew circumnavigated the earth, 1577-1580;
also stopping along the way to raid assorted Spanish
cities, etc., in the New World

Spare parts

Tower of Southwark Cathedral; and the Shard; see next post

Dickens country too

Hayes Galleria; formerly Hayes Wharf, one of the big ones on

the river in Victorian times; where we stopped for drinks and

a rest; in time, everything becomes a restaurant; or a shopping 

mall

Tower Bridge, which we then walked across

Approaching, of course, The Tower (dark, forbidding music...)

Looking past the Tower complex to the City

Tower Bridge from Tower moat

Contrasts...

At the Roman wall, a consul welcomes us back
to Londinium

Tate Modern

We are not big fans of "modern" art, but we'd not visited the Tate Modern before, and we thought we'd give it a go. Besides, if the art didn't excite, then the building might: it is the former Bankside Power Station, which provided London with electricity for much of the 20th century. The architects who undertook its transformation are the same who did the Bird's Nest in Tokyo for the 2008 Olympics, so we had high hopes. 

From the other bank

Approaching from the Millennium Bridge

In the great old Turbine Hall, definitely some space available if
you have some really large format works to offer

You have to wonder what she was thinking

We headed straight for the permanent collection;

here, Modigliani's Little Peasant, 1918

Braque's Mandora, 1909; it's a musical instrument

Picasso's Head of a Woman, 1909; they later
broke up

Dali's Autumnal Cannibalism, 1936; so far so good, modern-wise

But in the next room, things began to go
downhill; this is Barnett Newman's Moment,
1936; quite similar to the painting I was
doing in the late 1980s (seriously); in my
Artistic Statement, I described my work as
"unfettered by either talent or training"; I
liked to just mix up a bunch of earth-tones,
slather them on, and see what they suggested;
if anything; Moment reminds me also of some
scenes we saw recently in Iceland, as the lava
cooled

Vicki was never particularly appreciative of my artistic endeavors,
which took place mostly in the kitchen (not carpeted; though I
worked mostly in acrylics: easy clean-up); in an unrelated incident,
she left one of my works looking pretty much like this

The one that had the same tones as this item from Gerhard Richter's
John Cage series; I still have the battered painting rolled up in a box
in Missoula, waiting for some wise curator/conservator to restore it

Yves Klein's Paint on Canvas on Plywood, 1959; the paint
color is International Klein Blue, which he claimed to have
invented and trademarked; why didn't I think of that?

Obligatory Warhol

One of three walls of books redecorated with the names of 
immigrants who have achieved some degree of renown in 
Britain; The British Library, by Yinka Shonabare CBE; we
actually liked this

Nicole Eisenman's The Darkward Trail, 2018,
said to be a satire/allegory on America's 
conservative and Trumpian turn; a bit subtle...

From a collection of Soviet photo books

Cecilia Vicuna, Quipu Womb

At this point, the title of which I did not get, we were about
done; there was much more to look at; but we were done

A view across the Thames from the restaurant

The Turbine Hall, again, from on high

DIY modern art below

More outside

Portobello Road And Bits of Kensington and Nottinghill

After 20 months of this you'd think we'd know better. Better how to calculate the effects of COVID on sights, crowds, markets, and so on. But then I nearly always forget to take my mask to the Waitrose down the street and have to come back for it. We'd had some good experiences on Portobello Road in the past--fun, if not great purchases--and wanted to try it again. We did, and, of course, were disappointed. After 20 months of COVID, the merchants have had little opportunity to acquire new goods, and the public are still not out shopping such places. We did the length of Portobello Road, gave up, and then meandered into and through some of Kensingston and Nottinghill. Not our best day, but still a few pix worth recording.

Food Court; every cuisine represented; no one was hungry

Some of the side streets were more interesting; color-coded, too,
unlike most of Kensington

By noon, things were picking up, a bit

Vicki's the only one in this store of jewelry stalls wearing a mask

We're done and moving on

I always thought mews had something to do with cats

But I know now that mews are former alleys, courtyards, with
accommodations for horses and their grooms, buggies, drivers, and
other caretakers, upstairs, now converted to million dollar studios
and one-bedroom apartments...with garages

Monotonously beautiful

Fencing around the private park on the square; with
flying buttress

An entire square of these, four streets surrounding the park; each
identical

Beautifully monotonous

Nice park, though, award-winning

No riff raff, however

We stopped to briefly gawk at Kensington Palace

Statue of William of Orange, a gift from the Kaiser to the King,
1907, back when they were close personal buds

Then, after passing through Kensington Gardens, at last our day
was done

But with ill portents looming...