Rothko or Bust

Cold and miserable was the weather today in London and had I not already bought tickets to the Rothko exhibit at the Tate Modern we would've surely stayed in our jammies all day. Alas, sunk costs trumped reason. Our prefered Tube line wasn't working today so pricey black cabs were en vogue as we shuttled all the way over to Southwark. Worth it? Probably yes. Rothko's one of my favorites and both Tracy and Ben enjoyed it, too. We rented the audio guides which helped navigate the big show, plus Ben liked playing with this gadget. The exhibition was geared toward Rothko's later work in the 1960s, which is subtly but notably different than the big tri-colors for which he's best known. You'd have thought from the audioguide that the shift was so profound that he had moved into photography or something. But curators have to write about something, I suppose.

The kids like the Tate Modern but were disappointing to see that the massive (and planned) crack in the ground floor concrete had been "repaired." The temporary installation there now is quite silly really - a field of yellow and blue bunk beds, a massive (like, 50-feet tall massive) spider, an oversized apple core, and some black-and-white film on a screen in the corner. None of us found it interesting in the slightest. Ben did remember the scavenger hunt we had done on previous trips, but all of the kits had been rented out, so we just strolled through the permanent collection. Unbelievably, he pointed out which of the galleries had majorly changed their displays. Clealry someone was paying attention last time. We did have a nice little conversation about Jackson Pollack's splatter painting style, which Ben thought pretty cool and judged better than the massive Monet water lilly painting on the opposite wall. Not sure if I'd agree on that one, but love that the kid is into it.