|
This key event has been long in gestation. Dr Gavin
Stamp, a leading British architectural historian, first conceived
of the 'museum' idea when thinking of means of saving the original
power station building from demolition in the early 1980s. Then
Nicholas Serota, newly appointed Director of the Tate Gallery picked
up and ran with the idea. With vision he realised, pacing the length
of the abandoned site one evening, that here was the Tate Gallery's
own solution towards a new space for the modern collection.
But is it the Tate, and more important, is it modern?
The general reaction is that the building conversion achieved by
the Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuron is a worthy competition-winning
scheme, the more successfully realised than ever seemed possible
at first. For this, major praise is merited by the original jury,
which included the Viennese master architect of museums, Professor
Hans Hollein. The original building could provide a space 500 ft
long and 115 ft high, from the old turbine hall alone.
 |
The new reincarnation of the redundant power station
is dramatic at night. The architects realised the advantage of the
original chimney stacks a lit vertical beacon on the London skyline
(unlike a number of other competitors, who eliminated it). The conjunction
of the great mass of the building's riverside elevation, with this
vertical element, which is reinforced by the extreme horizontality
of the of the transparently lit upper level terrace level reminds
one of the minimalist abstractions of the early constructivists,
such as Chernikhov.
Is it the Tate?
Is it the Tate? The question is partly negated by
the obvious solution of leaving in Tate British (the new name of
the original Gallery) the essentially British Tate collections,
including the historic Turner paintings, and the eighteenth to twentieth
century English paintings. These are now more conveniently housed,
without quite resolving the bitter-sweet dilemma of which British
artists 'qualify' for Tate Modern - and if not, why not? Certainly
the British 'modern' representation in Tate Modern is more than
generous in an inevitably partisan manner. So abandoning Tate British
is not quite such an altruistic exercise as might be claimed.
Is it modern?
Is it 'Modern'? Well, er not quite. And this is where
the critics have reacted in a distinctly mixed vein. It seems fair
to say that 'Modernism' might actually be the very first victim
of Tate Modern, just as the late Colin Rowe, arbiter of British
and American revisions of the modern, claimed that the tree was
the first victim of modernism itself.
Modernism the casualty
As British art critic Waldemar Januszczak claims,
'the most notable casualty is modernism itself'. As John McEwen
says, 'An indestructible mausoleum is a conceptual neanderthal';
that 'mausoleum' of minimalist modernist adaptation has been said
by the Scottish art critic Duncan Macmillan to be 'truly sublime',
and it has been broadly recognised to be a cathedral for modern
art. So, Tate Modern is more or less successfully modern, depending
upon whether one is thinking of the controversial 'hang' of the
themed exhibits in the permanent collection, or simply of the architecture
alone. In both instances the jury is still out. But major congratulation
is in order to the Tate Gallery and its Board of Trustees, and Director
Sir Nicholas Serota, for such a courageous solution to the problem
of all modern museums, space, content, and structure.
We do not yet mention funding. The Tate Modern alone
cost over $200 million, a third more than Frank Gehry's masterpiece
Guggenheim Museum at Bilbao. The real and haunting issues remains
as to how the running costs of Tate Modern can square with praiseworthy
intention of offering free access, first, and in the longer term,
prove still manageable within normal budgetary criteria.
Naked issues
Studio International will be devoting a substantial
amount of web space to exploring the various issues which Tate Modern
in London raises so dramatically, dare one say, nakedly. There is
of course the most important of all issues, the disposition of the
permanent collections through the spaces, their formal arrangement,
and its structure, overlaps and overlays. Secondly there is the
pure architectural achievement of the building, completely unique
in its circumstances and in their resolution.
Dissolving museums
Then there is the broader question of the interaction
between Tate Britain and Tate Modern, and so with the other museums
in the constellation offered by London and Europe, America and the
world galaxy. Finally there is the fundamental issue of contemporary
art, how best to show it, how to inter-relate it; what use is chronology?
If you want to be controversial, just bin it - which is what Tate
Modern, in defiance of Tate Britain and just about every other national
museum in the world, just did. Issues run forward from this. What
new architectures should be recognised and devised for new museum
buildings? Can the 'curatorium', a small body in an increasingly
cost-conscious, power environment for art, survive, or will it experience
on a global scale what in English history is still remembered from
Tudor times as the 'Dissolution of the Monasteries'?
For Studio International, as an e-journal, immediacy
of comment can generate real discourse. As the site becomes increasingly
activated, this reincarnation of an old tradition for The Studio
seems revalidated. Tate Modern has been the perfect event with which
to launch Studio International e-journal. Watch this space.
|
