Tate, Tate, Tate!

Wednesday April 22, 2009 my second day in London. The plan for the day was to get up early and go to The Tate Modern and the Tower of London. I ended up waking up late and only seeing the Tate, but still had a great day. I wasn't sure how much I would like the Tate especially since I was just going in blindly and not knowing much about the place or what exhibitions that it currently was showing.
As I walked across the Millennium bridge towards the Tate I looked down into the Thames and thought of taking a picture of the water, just like an artist I learned about at NSCAD had done and made a whole photographic book about the water in the Thames, but didn't and just kept walking. However I was extremely excited just by a sign outside of the building before I even entered. The sign read 'Roni Horn aka Roni Horn'. I'm sure this doesn't mean anything to most but while I was at NSCAD I took about 3 different courses from this one teacher Stephen Horne and in every different class he spoke of Roni Horn. I've spent hours learning about her and have even written a few papers and now all of a sudden I stumbled on Roni Horn's first major showing of work in the UK and hadn't even known it. This also just happened to be the very artist I had just been thinking about as I walked over the Thames. http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/ronihorn/default.shtm
One half of a whole floor of the Tate was given up just for her work and it was very exiciting to see. However sadly you weren't allowed to take any photographs. The Tate then kept surprising me as I walked into one Gallery room I was excited to see actual prints and contact sheets of Robert Franks a favorite photographer of mine, then some Ed Ruscha paintings and of course some Andy Warhol!! I decided not to rush my visit and to spend time enjoying it all so sadly I took so long that the Tower of London was just closing as I left the Tate. To the Tower tomorrow! Later that night I wandered around and took some great pics of Big Ben. Tomorrow the Tower, seeing some friends and booking my Scotland and Ireland trips!