Beyond the Lizzie Line: Capturing the Moment at the Tate Modern
Capturing the Moment explores the dynamic relationship between contemporary painting and photography.
If we're honest, we ummed and aahhed about the development of this series with the recurring, nagging question being should a magazine/website about Ealing be about anything but Ealing?
But we're not just Ealing, are we? With the opening of the Lizzie Line last year, Central London has suddenly become so much more accessible. In an air conditioned hop, skip and a jump, you can happily reach the bright lights of Lahndan Tahn or, in this case, the Southbank and the Tate Modern (Lizzie to Farringdon & overground to Blackfriars, if you're asking.)
And so, after much deliberation, the Beyond the Lizzie Line series is born in which we'll be occasionally reviewing various events and happenings that are within easy reach of our little West London haven.
Beginning with the Capturing the Moment exhibition at the Tate Modern, which runs until January next year. I had the huge advantage of visiting The Tate Modern on an impeccably beautiful day. On a sunny day the view of St Paul's from the Tate Modern's café is without compare, in this Londoner's humble opinion. In the Summer, the Southbank comes alive with school kids on trips; energetic buskers and sun-loving art enthusiasts.
I went to the Tate specifically to visit the Capturing the Moment exhibition, a collection of work which explores the dynamic relationship between contemporary painting and photography. The exhibition is a conversation between some of the greatest painters and photographers of recent generations, looking at how the brush and the lens have been used to capture moments in time, and how these two mediums have inspired and influenced each other.
It begins with some of the most renowned expressive painters of the post-war period, exploring the realism of artists such as Lucian Freud and Alice Neel and discussing the emergence of their work alongside ground-breaking photographers such as Dorothea Lange.
Key works by Lisa Brice, Miriam Cahn, Peter Doig, Marlene Dumas, David Hockney and Paulina Olowska show ways in which the style, composition, content and meaning of contemporary painting exists in dialogue with photography.
Personal highlights included seeing the Weeping Woman by Picasso in the flesh; being up close and person with some of Lucien Freud's nudes whilst also enjoying a bit of camera trickery from Jeff Wall in A Sudden Gust of Wind and the famed screen-printing technique from Warhol.
If I'm honest, I found the premise of the exhibition; that of the conversation between photography and paintings, slightly tenuous.... but I loved viewing the collection of beautiful and impressive works of art and would highly recommend the trip out of the borough.
Reviewed by Louisa Maidwell