London, Tate Modern Review

Overall Rating

Its free but not that big.

Very busy.

I have been to this art gallery on many occasions. It is opposite St Paul's Cathedral over the Millennium Bridge. Although out of the way, there are still many facilities near by. Shakespeare's Globe is around the corner. The gallery is inside what used to be Bankside Power Station, it closed down some years ago. Parking near by will be very difficult.

You enter from the side into the Turbine Hall, a huge room running the length and height of the building. On the left is a book shop and then it's to the escalator to go up to the first floor. There may be an exhibition in the Turbine Hall, it is half the size of the gallery.

There are three floors of exhibitions everything from Andy Warhol through Gilbert and George to Van Gogh and probably W, X, Y, Z catered for in the surname stakes. There is also a separate exhibition at all times, which you pay to get into, for the cost of less than £10. Each floor is packed with free exhibits however.

Art for art sake money for gods sake, as the song goes. Every exhibit is very expensive but security is not heavy, it seems to be mainly by students in T-shirts rather than by security guards like they have in the National Gallery. I have never been to the gallery when it was not packed with people.

It is packed with people whom are students and Sunday Times and Guardian reading art types. They are all very arty so they will give nothing a value, unless it knows how to be a form. It is all form over function, the more useless it seems to be the more artistic it will be thought of. They know all the theory so they are very well informed, it is like a social club for postmodern people. Stuck up they will be and will wind you up if you do not know what you are taking about. They are experts on the wind up.

When I was there they were showing a film with very loud music as if some thing was happening but it was a film of the Thames outside the gallery in 1970, it was ironic? The film showed how the area has been regenerated, it was a bomb site after the war.

Recommended, as it is free after all but it is not an aesthetic experience like a trip to the National Gallery. It is full of tourists. It is more a postmodern theoretical experience of art and student types, so is an acquired taste.