Oh MAH-velous, just MAH-velous!

My first post of the year is about my latest passion: art. In my quest for self-improvement and education, I convinced P to take me to the Tate Modern today.

Walking over the Millenium Bridge, you can see that the Tate is a huge and impressive museum housing seven floors of different types of modern art. The first thing we did was head to the cafe for a latte and a croissant as we wanted to be properly fortified to walk round the cavernous building.

In the basement was this installation called "The Crack". No, it wasn't an ode to young women the world over in hipster jeans or construction workers bending over drills. Instead a gigantic split like an earthquake fault ran along the entire length of the concrete basement floor of the museum.

After staring at it for a few seconds with a puzzled look on his face, P said, "It's all very nice, but I can hardly have this in my living room can I?"

I told him, "Yes you could, and all you would need is a sledge hammer and a chisel. Though your downstairs neighbour might be a bit cheesed off!"

Believe it or not, people actually seemed to be meditating into the crack of the floor and taking it all very seriously. I had a quick peek too, and all I saw in there was dirt and some sweet wrappers thrown in by other visitors before me. Yawn.

Things improved a few floors up, and we saw two pieces that we loved. One was a very large Monet, a pond scene in his usual soft tones and lovely hues. The other piece just blew my mind: an abstract by the American artist Joan Mitchell. At first, I thought it was by the singer Joni Mitchell until P corrected me. See why I need educating in the art world?

I can't remember the title of it, but it was captivating and something you could look at for ages. I could so have that in my home! But as her art works sell for millions, yes millions of dollars, maybe in my next life time. Even her signed lithographs are over $2,000 each.

I guess we all have different ways of enjoying art. I don't know about you guys, but when there is a piece that captures my imagination, I can stare at the details for hours, like 'Alone' in my living room. I have since bought three more pieces of art by different Indonesian artists (two landscapes and an abstract), which I will put on the blog once I get them home.

There was also an intelligent and witty exhibition by African artists in bright colours, depicting aspects of war and life in that turbulent continent to great success. P and I truly admired their talent. Not only was it clever, but the paintings themselves were beautifully done.

On the flip side, some of what was on display also made us laugh. One was a slab of wood painted brown (yes, brown wood, how original) hung on the wall and another was a framed piece of fabric with a slash through it. Huh? We could hear some people being completely pretentious and acting as if they knew what all the weird sculptures meant. Some of the descriptions of the art work had me rolling my eyes as well. I know art is all about interpretation, but some of it was really rubbish. I lost interest somewhere between the bidet (I kid you not) and three basketballs in a fish tank. Some people call that art. I call it taking the p*ss.

Happy New Year everyone!