My visit to Tate Modern and the 'modern' arts

This weekend, I got a chance to visit Tate Modern in London. For those of you, who are not aware of as to what I am talking about, Tate is a family of four art galleries housing the UK's collection of British art from 1500 and of international modern art. The group is simply called Tate. The Tate Modern galleries are housed in the former Bankside Power Station, situated on the banks of River Thames. It faces the spectacular St Paul’s Cathedral and the Millennium Bridge (more famous for the many Bollywood shootings)

This has been in my ‘To visit’ list for quite some time as it features in the Top 10 London attractions and more so because the entry is free. (its quite strange here for tourist attractions in London, either the entry is absolutely free or its so high that you really need to scratch your wallet to visit them)

Anyways, this blog is not to describe the London attractions or even the architecture / heritage of Tate Modern. This blog is to describe the so called Modern Art and what it means. Everytime, I visit such modern art galleries and this time Tate Modern, the popularity of the same makes me curious. Is it only me who doesn’t understand them or my taste in art can never go beyond the classical sense?

The biggest difference is: In all classical arts, at least you can comprehend what you are seeing and the description is more to enhance the history in which it was created, life of the artist and in what circumstances he created the art; thus making it even more enjoyable and interesting.

Modern Art… first you cant understand what has been depicted unless you read the explanation; secondly even after reading it, you can create a thousand other interpretations of the same.

Let me take up two examples from the galleries of Tate Modern again.
First is a painting. The painting is complete dark blue except on the bottom edges, which is a bit of red and the top edge where it’s a bit of dark yellow. The description said something of contrast etc. etc. But would it be any different, if everything was red and edges were blue/yellow. Or may be just don’t paint it at all; leave it white and drop some black paint (can there be any more contrast than black or white)

Sometimes, I wonder how this would be different, if I asked a little kid to drop some colors on a wide canvas and let his imaginations go wild.

The second one was a movable art (or should I say running art): Martin Creed's Work No. 850 in which young runners, one at a time, will run every 30 seconds from one end of the gallery to another. And I always thought running was a sport (or at max, an exercise). But here I am watching people run in an art gallery as an art creation and we should not just watch them but also try to understand the meaning behind viz. vitality, physicality, movement, action (I can even say: preparing for 2012 Olympics, lack of open parks, concrete jogging tracks, etc.,)

I will not try to define the goals of such an exercise as the local newspaper covered it and debated it quite extensively (The Independent even said: Is art running out of ideas? Artists forced to explain modern art)

There are so many such arts depicted in modern art galleries worldwide, some priced beyond my decade earnings (or may be even more)

Ok, I don’t want to be harsh or rude; in no way I want to undermine the efforts of any of the artists. But, as I said earlier, its beyond my comprehension.

To think simply, shouldn’t art have a purpose, shouldn’t it interpret itself, shouldn’t it summarize the feelings, emotions, surroundings, climate, environment, human psyche, shouldnt it be pleasing to the eyes, and so on. It should at least achieve something. I leave it to your thoughts....