Tate Modern & London Eye

I really enjoyed visiting Tate Modern. The works there really grabbed my attention. While I was walking through each collection, I was thinking of modernism and works that represented finding meaning in life. One work that jumped out at me was Action Pants: Genital Panic created by Valie Export. It was multiple photographs of a woman sitting in a chair with a triangle cut out in the crotch of her pants. What really interested me was the story behind why this piece was created. Valie Export created this piece after entering a cinema, herself, wearing pants with the crotch cut out. She walked up and down each isle and in between the viewers. Her point was to confont the stereotype of how women were represented in cinema as passive objects. How great is this! This work represents how Export is searching for significance in her life and how to make a difference. She is not happy with the way women are represented and wants to use her art to change that view and also to help enhance the overall role of women by showing they can be tough. I see this as modern because the issues involved related specifically to what was going on in 1969, which was women's issues.

I was also interested in Picasso's works. Picasso dealt a lot with nudity, sex and love in his pieces. I specifically looked at Nude Woman with Necklace, Reclining Nude, and The Three Dancers. Picasso never painted the figures in a normal manner. He was constantly reinventing ways of looking at faces, bodies, and positions. The manipulations of the figures show different emotional and psychological questions Picasso had. For example, The Three Dancers is a painting that supposedly represents a love triangle which ended in suicide for one of the individuals involved. This shows a connection between love, sex and death.

I also loved Andy Warhol, particularly because I had learned about him previously. I always enjoyed his work with popular images and the subtle way some of his pop art drew attention to a controversial topic.

The London Eye was a lot of fun too. It was incredible to see such an amazing view of the entire city. It showed a different perspective of so many places I have already visited and seen up close. I could see a lot of differences in architecture while I was up there as well. I feel like a lot of buildings fit into the idea of postmodern but am still not sure about it. I have postmodern defined as a break from the past. In my opinion, there were a lot of buildings that differed structurally from what was commonly used in the past. For example, the way the bridges were constructed with the cables and beams seemed very contemporary as opposed to the architecture of the House of Parliament and Big Ben. The London Eye also seems postmodern because architecturally it is extremely different from what was being constructed in the past. The entire view shows the history of London through architecture. For example, there were modern buildings standing right next to historical St. Paul's Cathedral and what was really cool about it was that the view sort of blended the buildings all together.