Back to Leigh

After spending the morning on housekeeping -- mostly dishes from our dinner party, which I managed to do in three rather than four dishwasher-loads -- I headed out into the city yesterday for some urban adventures.

Remember how I went to the Leigh Bowery show at the Tate a couple of weeks ago, but couldn't stay long enough to see the whole thing? Well, I decided to go back and take it all in this time.

First, I got online and joined the Tate as a member. I've been meaning to do it for a while. Membership entitles me to free entry to their special exhibits, as well as access to their members' cafes and some other perks. (I think there's also a magazine, which is more curse than blessing, but whatever.) Then I set out for the museum on the tube.

My plans were immediately thrown when I learned that Southwark station, the tube station closest to the Tate Modern, was closed. I think this was for engineering works. I wound up having to go to London Bridge and then walk back through Borough Market and along the river to the museum.

The show was excellent and I'm so glad I went back. Bowery was a fascinating character, so inventive and original. I was in awe of his creativity, which began with astonishing clothes and eventually segued to padded, sculpted wearable art like his Mrs. Peanut outfit.

He also posed for painter Lucian Freud, whose canvases of Bowery are included in the show. It was an interesting exhibit encompassing not only fashion but video, music, performance, painting and photography, and bits of cultural paraphernalia as small as postcards, letters and Polaroid prints. (You know I loved that!)

Afterwards I went to the Tate's members' cafe, thinking I might sit and have a coffee. Well, the place was packed, and there were no free tables, so the best I could do was take a picture of its expansive view over the Thames and St. Paul's Cathedral.
 

Afterwards, to avoid going back to London Bridge, I decided to walk along the South Bank. I eventually crossed the river on the pedestrian paths next to the Hungerford Bridge and made my way through Trafalgar Square to Piccadilly, where I caught a bus.

Here's a little video of my pedestrian activities. You will see or hear:

1. The bells tolling at Southwark Cathedral
2. The view from the pedestrian bridge, known as the Golden Jubilee Bridges
3. A peg-legged pigeon at Trafalgar Square
4. The artwork on the square's Fourth Plinth, called "Mil Veces un Instante," or "A Thousand Times in an Instant," by Mexican artist Teresa Margolles. It's made of plaster casts of the faces of transgender, non-binary and gender-nonconforming people, meant to raise awareness of the violence so many of them face.

The bus home was diverted through Westminster by pro-Palestine demonstrations, but by the time it got to St. John's Wood and West Hampstead it was back on its regular route. I enjoyed sitting on the upper deck and watching the world go by; much slower than the tube but also much more fulfilling.

I love the little surprises that inevitably come with the view -- like four people carrying a large mattress through St. John's Wood. Urban life! In cities, people live right out in the open, carrying their stuff through the streets and rubbing elbows with passers-by, for better or worse. In most of America they and their mattress would be concealed in a car or truck. (Well, granted, the mattress might be tied to the top.)

Anyway, it was a good day and I intend to use my Tate membership for a few more exhibits in coming months!