Academic Writing- Exhibition Review

Today we visited the Tate Modern with the aim of writing a review for one of the rooms in the gallery.

For the reviews we had to consider how the room was laid out, why specific artists and pieces of work were put together, what was conveyed by the room and many other things.

To be honest most of the gallery was uninspiring, most of the photography was quite bland, the sculptures were weird as usual and nothing really grabbed my attention.

This carried on until I came across the rooms by Dan Flavin.  As a photographer who enjoys the physicality of light I was excited to find an installation using light as the medium. It reminded me of the ‘Light Show’ exhibition I went to at the Hayward Gallery which explored the qualities and possibilities of using light in installation- definitely my favourite gallery I’ve been to. I loved how the light interacted with the people walking through the rooms- they cast shadows on the walls and caused the room to subtly change colour due to the different amount of each colour mixing together. The light fixtures were softly reflected in the white walls and floor creating a very calm, ambient atmosphere. Unfortunately these rooms were not on the list of rooms we could review, so I had to settle for something else.

I ended up picking the room ‘Facing History: Leon Golub and Sarkissian’- you can read my review below.

Facing History: Leon Golub and Hrair Sarkissian

Facing History, a part of the Transformed Visions collection at the Tate Modern, aims to ‘confront the violence and atrocities of contemporary war and civil society’. The painting Vietnam III by Leon Golub and the series of photographs Execution Squares by Hrair Sarkissian face each other on opposite walls.

As you walk in to room the contrast between the artwork on the two facing walls is apparent. On the first side you see there is a very visual, intense portrayal of violence and war from Vietnam III. This is illustrated by both the content of the image- men are wielding rifles, people are running around with shocked expressions- and also the rough, tossed texture of the marks that are used to create the image.

The wide format of the painting with the subjects pushed to each edge of the frame produces a very strong composition with conflict between the gun-wielding soldiers on the left and the fear-stricken innocents on the right.

The other side of the room is a very different story- there are no panicked people running around, no fights, gun shots or in fact any visible violence at all. Empty streets are the only things that populate the second wall, Execution Squares. The absolute silence and emptiness is quite eerie and makes the viewer wonder about what might have happened before these photos were taken. The imagery of violence and war in Vietnam III on the opposite wall suggests that the streets in Execution Squares may have had a violent past despite the lack of any visual evidence. In actual fact ‘the images were taken in three different cities in places where public executions had taken place’.

‘Sarkissian’s first personal experience of an execution was as a child when he passed one of these squares on his journey to school and saw three bodies hanging in the street.’

The ability of the photographs to provoke a response is thanks to how the perspective, format and focal length are used to mimic what the viewer would see through their own eyes if they were there.

The two pieces really work well together and play off each other to create an impact on the viewer by contrasting graphic violence and deathly silence, two very powerful means of communicating the same issue. Sarkissian’s work could almost be seen as the aftermath of Golub’s painting, or possibly the calm before the storm.

This is a room well worth checking out.