Review on Tate Visit (1st draft) - Transformed Visions

During my visit to the Tate Modern, I found that the transformed visions exhibition intrigued me the most. Curated by Matthew Gale, I especially liked the second room that was titled 'new images of man'. The theme that I found ran throughout this room of works, were the different ways in which various artists showed their interpretation man in their pieces.

My initial reaction to the exhibition was overwhelming, due to the varied styles and mixed media used, in which artists displayed their unique ways of representing man. Below are two images I selected from the exhibition that really stood out for me; 'Seated Man' by Alberto Giacometti and 'Man in a Wheelchair' by Leon Kossoff. They both caught my attention due to the colours used. Although both pieces consist of both light and dark colours I felt that the dark colours made the lighter colours stand out more, overall making the pieces more noticeable.

'The Seated Man' in contrast to 'Man in a Wheelchair' is much more defined, however both images do not reveal clear images of the artist's subjects. Due to this I firstly feel that physically this makes the images instantly more intriguing as the mass of colours in each photo draws in viewers. Psychologically on the other hand I feel that these pieces leave a lot to the viewer's imagination, for me it made me question the identity of the men in the pieces.

On further research I discovered that Alberto Giacometti drew his images under great scrutiny and reworked the images to capture shifting movement. Similarly Leon Kossoff's piece was continually reworked, adding more layers of thick paint which gave the image a three dimensional appearance. I get the feeling from both of these images that the artists were perfectionist's in the sense that the image was never right; therefore they kept reworking them until they were satisfied.

I think for this exhibition it is very important for someone to go in with an open mind as there are so many different artists interpretations and to go in with a fixed view would make some of the works harder to understand. I think what I can take from this exhibit is that art doesn't have to be the norm and doesn't have to be the obvious so viewers can understand. I find art much more interesting when it allows you to broaden your mind and think more in depth about the pieces.

Man in a Wheelchair (1961)
Leon Kossoff

Seated Man (1949)
Alberto Giacometti