An essay written in modern times (Museum vol. 2)

I am walking to the Tate Modern; the placid river is reflecting the city; restaurants and shops are being passed by, but not before being noted for later; I am at the Tate Modern. The museum is enormous; overwhelming; unconquerable. Erin mentions the possibility that most of the enormity is empty space, as a stylistic flair of sorts. The museum looks like a warehouse from the outside - we step through the doors - and the inside, too. Everything becomes monochromatic as the interior is pure, unadulterated grey. Rafters are clearly visible. There are no walls to be seen, initially, save the four large ones. The Tate is an oppressive, half-empty rectangle. Very minimalist; very conjuring-of-mechanization; I will take the liberty of dubbing this building Modernist.

Prof. Cvetkovich had reminded us to notice and consider the building itself, and now I knew why. The very structure housing modern art was itself a work of modern art, insofar as we can define a term like "modern art." Indeed, what does that mean? Minimalism? Post-structuralism? Dada? There are, of course, numerous angles and opinions on the value and aesthetics of modern art, modernism, what have you, but what really intrigued me is that the Tate picked one and designed the modern art museum in that selected style. I shall list what I perceive to be the implications of this: 1. That modernism, in fact, is truly definable, or at least, that its aesthetic is. 2. That a museum should be designed in the style of the art it claims to hold, so long as it can define said art (see Implication #1). 3. That the building housing aforementioned art, insofar as it is definable, should likewise be defined, so that said building itself becomes a piece of art (and maybe should be housed within a larger, non-modernist building?) And 4. That all art within said building is modern art...in so far as that term can be defined. So that, you know, we have the Rothko room, an assortment of Dali, a smattering of Matisse, and a warehouse.

What will happen to the Tate Modern in a hundred years, when this modern art movement is no longer modern? Will it have to change it's name? And I wonder why there don't seem to be museums dedicated to other -isms. Where's the Tate Romantic? The Smithsonian Gothic? The Fort Worth Museum of Dada Art? (Would that building be shaped like a toilet?) I guess we just have a fascination with the period in which we live.