I didn't spend too much time looking at exhibitions at Tate Modern during this trip, because one of their main exhibitions, Marlene Dumas' The Image as Burden is an exhibition I saw last September in Amsterdam, and I didn't have time to see their other big exhibition, Sonia Delauney.

I was there to see a movie, so whilst I was waiting, I walked around all the free exhibits. Here are my highlights from that evening.

Henry Wessel, Incidents 05, from Incidents 2012 Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper, 406 x 508 mm © Henry Wessel, courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

Henry Wessel, Incidents 14, from Incidents 2012 Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper, 406 x 508 mm © Henry Wessel, courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

Henry Wessel, Incidents 26, from Incidents 2012 Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper, 406 x 508 mm © Henry Wessel, courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

From parking lots and highways to suburban houses and hotel lobbies, Henry Wessel’s technically sophisticated photographs depict America’s social landscape.
Described by Wessel as a ‘work without words’, Incidents is a portfolio of 27 photographs recently acquired by Tate, depicting ordinary moments in the everyday lives of strangers. Captured from his car, on the street, or in other public places, and taken with minimal interaction with the subject, these commonplace scenes are framed by Wessel as if they were isolated moments from a grander narrative.
Incidents was not originally produced as a series. Instead, it emerged from Wessel’s process of returning to his archive of contact sheets and discovering connections between images taken years or even decades apart. Wessel has said that this manner of working distances him from the subjective experience of shooting.

Nam June Paik

Nam June Paik (1932–2006) used television as an artistic medium from the early 1960s and developed a unique style of video art based on technological innovation and creative experimentation. His work altered and transformed newly found technologies. Although art and technology were often seen as diametrically opposed to each other, Paik paved a way to integrate them.

Paik was born in South Korea and studied music in Japan and Germany. Influenced by and working alongside musicians such as John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen, and artists such as Joseph Beuys, he developed a great interest in electronic music and dada-inspired provocative aesthetics. Paik was also closely involved in the New York avant-garde and Fluxus, an informal international group of avant-garde artists active from the early 1960s to the late 1970s.

This display showcases the diversity of Paik’s practice, ranging from Can Car 1963, an early ready-made sculpture, to Nixon 1965–2002, which incorporates manipulated cathode-ray-tube televisions, and Bakelite Robot 2002, a humanoid machine sculpture. Based on his observations of everyday life and the increasing influence of mass-media, this group of works represents Paik’s visionary approach towards the future of art and his continued relevance to contemporary practice.

Dod Procter - Morning

Dod Procter - Morning, 1926 © Tate | Oil on canvas support: 762 x 1524 mm frame: 1072 x 1832 x 73 mm

How beautiful is this painting?

This was voted Picture of the Year at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition of 1927 and bought for the nation by the Daily Mail newspaper.

From c.1922 Dod Procter had begun to paint a series of simple, monumental portraits of young women that she knew, utilising the fall of light across the figures to give a powerful sense of volume. The model was Cissie Barnes, the sixteen year old daughter of a fisherman from Newlyn, the Cornish village that was home to Dod Procter for most of her working life.