Drawing Tuesday at Tate Modern: Blavatnik Building, Planes and William Kentridge

 What an exciting Drawing Tuesday  at Tate Modern ( even if not much sketching got done)! Besides exploring and interacting  with various artworks,   had  an excellent view of the flypast to mark 100 years of the RAF   and watched  some of the rehearsals with William Kentridge of the 'Head and the Load' .

I was delayed getting  to the Tate due to problems on the buses so instead of settling down and drawing or visiting the busy exhibitions in the Boiler House  I decided to explore some of the free displays in the Blavatnik Building  starting out with 'Performer and Participant' , including the screening of 'The crystal Quilt' by Suzanne Lacy. What an amazing project  and ahead of its time. 

I was intrigued by how Ana Lupas had 'preserved' fragile straw structures in metal, preserving their form, reminding me of my visit to Romania for work.  

  I couldn't resist taking selfies among the mirrors of Edward  Krasinski's installation

 Mirrors and selfies  also featured in the 'Between Object and Architecture' display, this piece by Yayoi Kusama was very popular , the guard had his work cut out stopping  people going over the line ( it's very fragile) .

I liked how it interacted with other pieces in the room like this pavilion  by Cristina Iglesius

  The work I like best however  was 'Stack' by Tony Cragg.

Meeting the others at 12.30 as usual, instead of heading for lunch and 'show and tell' of our sketches ( that came later)  we went out to the river to find a good position for viewing the flypast . 

I've never seen so many people on the Millennium ( 'wobbly'') Bridge   and every accessible rooftop was filled. 

A couple of helicopters were hovering nearby as markers  and then just before 1pm , cheers  erupted as the first group of Chinooks  flew over. 

The precision  of the positioning was amazing ( I only realised afterwards that I'd managed to capture the '100' formation) 

 And it finished of  course with the 'Red Arrows'  ( the coloured trails just starting as they moved out of sight. ) Just wonderful .

After lunch at Leons, I returned to the 'Stack'  but  after 2 failed  attempts to draw  it accurately, started to list all the components including the different forms of cardboard.  

 My inattention was probably due to my impatience to get back to the rehearsals of the Head and the Load. I'd watched a bit of it earlier with Margaret C.  with nothing much going on - lots of directing by William Kentridge himself on positioning of people  and shifting props around. When I returned in the afternoon it was in full swing with musicians, projections and shadows of people. It sounded and looked amazing: the tickets , unsurprisingly, sold out straight away.