The Covid Diaries 7: Tate Modern, Warhol

Review of Warhol at Tate Modern. In which I am put off by a chaotic lack of social distancing. The exhibition was ok but would have been better if I could have spent more time looking at it.

Back to Tate Modern to Review some Warhol

I was looking forward to the reopening of Tate Modern and going to see and review the Andy Warhol retrospective. I quite like Warhol; for me his prodigious output across various media means there’s always a new angle or something to learn. This was very much a chronological retrospective. The exhibition surveys Warhol’s childhood, commercial work, forays into art, the Factory, the shooting, increasing celebrity, late works. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to visit the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh back in January, so it’s possible I may have been destined to be a little disappointed by something that was essentially the same but smaller. That’s not the Tate’s fault – it’s a good, small retrospective, perfect for getting acquainted with Warhol’s work.

In the event, however, my enjoyment of the exhibition itself was completely overshadowed by navigating Tate Modern’s implementation of Covid-19 measures. Or lack of measures. This was by far the worst visitor experience I’ve had since museums and galleries began to reopen. Whereas it might be a minor inconvenience to wait for the next room to be available at the Wallace Collection, or tricky to stick to the pre-determined routes at the National Gallery, Tate Modern was pretty chaotic from start to finish.

Struggling with Covid Measures

There was insufficient signage or direction at the entry point. This left staff flustered as some visitors misunderstood and strolled in past the ticket checking point. The one way systems around escalators and stairs were a little complex, and there was no clear direction from staff. Staff at the door of the exhibition didn’t seem interested in us being there, let alone keen to give guidance. And most bafflingly, MASKS WERE NOT MANDATORY! When it comes to exactly what’s required by the British government in different establishments your guess is as good as mine, but in every similar venue I’ve been to, masks have been a given. [Edit: I’ve since learned mandatory masks in museums are coming into force shortly. Thank goodness] Not at the Tate. People were just wandering everywhere, not socially distanced (too many tickets sold?) and breathing on each other.

I was so uncomfortable that I couldn’t focus on the art and information panels. As a result I skipped entire sections, and finished in about 30 minutes. Hilariously, at the exit stood the only person tasked with ensuring visitors wore a mask. For the shop. Not the rest of the time, just the shop…

Putting the Agency Back Into Warhol’s Ladies and Gentlemen

So what else do I have to say about my experience of going to review Warhol at Tate Modern? Well one thing that I liked was the room entitled Ladies and Gentlemen. This was a selection of Warhol’s portraits of Black and Latinx drag queens and trans women, with curatorial intervention. The curators outlined the approach behind their choice of pronouns in discussing the subjects; and how there has been more interest recently in returning some agency to the anonymous sitters by researching their names and histories.

I liked that it deliberately brought to the forefront the more problematic aspects of this series. It might seem progressive and empowering to choose these individuals as the subject of a series of works, but Warhol wasn’t interested in that, and was barely interested in the people behind the images. It has fallen to later art historians, activists and curators to restore individual identities where possible.

Final Thoughts on Andy Warhol at Tate Modern

Other than that, I really liked the final room. A large-scale multiple reproduction of da Vinci’s Last Supper is so well-lit it pops like a light box when you walk in the room. Superb.

So I will wait a couple of weeks to see if I get coronavirus as a result of the outing. I can tell you I felt a lot closer to it than pretty much anywhere else since lockdown began. Apart maybe from Clapham High Street on a sunny Saturday afternoon. It’s a shame, as I might have got the new insights I was looking for if I hadn’t been so preoccupied by the lack of organisation.

On its own merits: 3.5/5
Implementing Covid rules: 1/5

Andy Warhol until 15 November 2020