Tate Modern

A week ago I made a trek to the Tate Modern, starting from London Bridge:

The Thames is a lovely brown color this time of year:

A nice view of downtown buildings across the river:

After some adventures in the rain, I managed to make it to the museum 45 minutes after I crossed the bridge.  As a disclaimer, I never fully appreciated modern art in the past, but I was open to what this famous place had to offer:

It appears that half of the exhibitions in this "free" museum are paid, so I only had some limited options.  I started in the Meschac Gaba Museum for African Art:

Mr. Gaba has tried to "boldly redefine" what a museum exhibition is, and as such each room in his exhibit seems to be a mosaic of his life and thoughts.  First notable piece: a fake freezer with rubber chickens:

Inside this strange exhibit was a tree with money glued on (so deep) and some wooden blocks for children to play with:

Other things include more cryptic messages about money, and a giant chess set:

I was confused as to what the exhibit was trying to accomplish, but I thought perhaps other things would be better.  Here are some brief samples of other exhibits, starting with surrealism:

A painting by Joan Miro, the "Facebook like" blob is supposed to be a horse.

A view from the top of the Tate showing the Millennium bridge

Tree with mud covered people:

Pollock blobs:

Monet Garden, one of the few paintings that I could recognize what was in it:

A scary Vietnam war painting:

"3-D" art:

A big gourd baby:

Kind of at a loss here...some planks? Signifying walking?

The art of stacking fluorescent lights:

There were many more paintings and sculptures, but I had trouble getting much appreciation from them (I did read the very descriptive captions but had no idea how people are supposed to read into this).  Overall, I found my time at the Tate mostly enjoyable, though perhaps more confusing than insightful.