So very, very London
Last month I had a day in London, with just one task to do and a train to catch in the afternoon.
St Paul’s Cathedral from the Millenium Bridge over the Thames
I started the day with mission Passport renewal (tick), and – walking down the south bank in glorious sunshine - realized that I could see the views my long time friend David posts when he’s working on the riverboats. I asked at the terminal whether the pier master knew him – and was lucky to be directed over the river.
‘Dave? He’s on the Tower Millenium Pier’.
It felt, for a moment, that the layers of sunshine and fabric of modernity was barely succeeding in obscuring the generations of boatmen on the river and beachcombers on the foreshore. Whether reclothed in tracksuits or carrying metal detectors, the modern counterparts of Dickens’ characters are drawn to the Thames and bound into a community of common respect.
Boat people, beach combers and ferrymen…
When I found him, Dave was just about to close the ferry pier at Tower Bridge in advance of a barrage of artillery fire to commemorate the King’s birthday. We turned from the salute (however many very loud guns it was) to catch the Red Arrows in the opposite direction. All whilst I refused to believe that his daughter is now off to university. I’m sure she’s still only 8. Time has concertinaed and caught me out. Intentions to keep in touch have not matured into actions and the web of connections is tenuous. But still there. I’m glad I walked my way here but my feet are sore. Dave marshals me onto the next westbound boat which sweeps me back towards the south bank and the Tate Modern.
The river and the Red Arrows
Whilst eating momos (because, why not? this is London where everything converges) in one of the shadier streets behind the gallery, I booked myself tickets to see Anthony McCall Solid Light. I’d read about the exhibition a while ago, how the first cone of light was projected in a dusty warehouse in New York – but now with less smoke and dust the Tate has had to recreate a delicate haze so that there were enough particles to reflect and refract the light. I’d resigned myself to missing it, so this felt like a fortuitous moment.
Solid Light…
Solid Light was a delight – not just the magic of the light projections but also the audience interacting with them. Each work creates partitions and enclosures of light that are quite bewitching from within, embellished by whorls and eddies of haze to create momentary seclusion and luminous space.
And from the outside the installations hover somewhere between two and three dimensional art – the points and lines of projections traced onto the hanging screens. A suggestion of the possibility of solidity between. It’s a curiously playful exploration of surface and dimension – making children laugh and adults ripple their fingers through the boundaries of the works.
A video from the interior of a light projection showing segments of light and dark radiating textured with smoke patterns.
From the Tate I caught the tube north to St Pancras where the portal to Paris beckons. After the crowds and the many potential paths and actual reminiscences and I’m glad to take my seat on the Eurostar.
London feels like a week in a day.
From the Thames to la Seine
Back to my mirror city on the other side of the Channel.
