Andy Warhol at Tate Modern in a mask

The Andy Warhol exhibition at Tate Modern has been extended so I thought, 'why not?' and headed up to Tate Modern to join the queue to get in, enmasked of course. I suspect he would've loved masks for various reasons and I was a bit surprised there weren't any for sale in the exhibition shop.

I'm not the biggest Warhol fan but I set up a Warhol playlist on my iPod to get me in the mood. 'Songs for Drella' (of course), some Velvet Underground, songs about him from Bowie and others, songs about New York and about art, all sorts of stuff. The first song to pop up was John Cale's 'Trouble with Classicists' from 'Drella' that seemed like a perfect start to the journey up to Tate Modern.

I got there a bit early but masked up and joined the short queue outside for the exhibition and then the longer queue inside on the third floor to get into the exhibition itself. It was all very efficient and safe so well done to the Tate and staff for making it so easy to get in.

The first room has a series of over a dozen line drawings of androgynous young men but the second room is where the blockbusters begin, with Marilyn, Elvis, soup cans, coke bottles and Brillo pad boxes. I stood there looking at the pile of Brillo pad boxes and wondered if they were in the right order, the right shape? And then decided that it didn't really matter, I'm pretty sure that Warhol didn't bother with a diagram to show how the pile of boxes should be put together.

As you'd expect for a media cult figure in the '60s and '70s, there are lots of photographs to look at and I really liked this photo of Andy and Lou Reed in the '60s - how young Lou looks. It's good to include exhibits like this in the exhibition to show how broad Warhol's ambition was and how he tried to connect all branches of the arts by wanting his own rock band to project his films onto. Weird stuff but that was the '60s for you. And, of course, the mandatory sunglasses.

On the opposite wall is the screen print of Elizabeth Taylor hung on a silver wall.

I did like the way the Tate has played out these rooms. Liz Taylor is hung on a wall covered in silver bacofoil, nice and shiny, and then later, the Mao screenprint is hung on a wall covered in Mao heads. I did wonder for a moment whether that was meant to be art as well and then decided it didn't really matter.

Most things were on a big scale so some rooms didn't have many works in them. In the current circumstances that seems very sensible indeed.

I didn't bother waiting in a queue to see the thin corridor that covered the time when Valerie Solanas shot Andy and all the smaller exhibits, like newspaper cuttings in glass cases, but walked straight through to avoid too many people. That room could do with a rethink, I suspect.  I did quite like the room full of 'drag and trans' prints that had a sign at the door that explained that 'drag and trans' had different meanings back in the late 60s and 70s, which I thought was quite sweet. It sort of reflects the people Warhol hung out with, an inclusive scene rather than anything else. Did he mean that as a political gesture or was it just that they were good subjects, or good fun at the time? Whatever, they're good to look at and there are some interesting experiments in colour and shape in his portraits. I wonder what they thought about being his subjects? Was it an honour or a pain or did they care at all?

I really liked Warhol's portraits of Lenin, the great Russian revolutionary, a perfect subject to enrage at the time. You can't see it in my photo but theres an electric blue outline around Lenin's face in the darker print. Lenin is relatively young in the photograph he copied for these large portraits and you can well imagine him being responsible for a revolution. I wonder how many of these prints he actually produced  before deciding that he was happy with the final versions?

In this room there's also a glass case that includes three of his wigs. They looked a bit scruffy and manky to me but he was happy to wear them.

There are his celebrity portraits, of course, epitomised by two prints of Mick Jagger and two of Debbie Harry. It's probably an age thing but I was more excited to see Debbie than I was to see Mick.  They are very simple as prints but it's obvious who they are.

Jagger is from 1975 (hence the slash of make-up) and Debbie is from 1980 when she was probably the most famous woman in the world, full-on pout and direct gaze.

The final room is darkened and has one work on show across an entire wall, 'Sixty Last Suppers', based on an old photograph of Leonardo's 'Last Super' in Milan. It's in black and white and shows a degraded version of the famous painting. The signage refers to his partner dying of an AIDS-related illness around the time he produced it and it is quite sombre but there's also the hope of the resurrection a few days later. I suspect part of the sombre tone comes from the subdued lighting rather than the subject matter. I admit to being one of those annoying people that gets too close to the work as I tried to identify what was different from this version to that version five prints along in the series.

I enjoyed the exhibition. I don't think I learned anything about Warhol from it but I've already booked another ticket to see it again. 

Robert Mapplethorpe - Artists Rooms at Tate Modern

I saw a small exhibition of Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs the other day at the Tate Modern as part of its Artists Rooms series. It's made up of three rooms of photographs, mainly portraits and one of the rooms is full of portraits of Robert himself.

Naturally, it started with three photos of Patti Smith, one from the 'Horses' session, one from 'Waves' and a photo of a naked Patti crouching beside a radiator. There were also three portraits of Andy Warhol with his white hair stark against the black background. I couldn't help but wonder what he saw while he posing for the photos.

After the first room there's a small sign at the entrance to the second room to warn of the sexualised theme of some of the photos in further rooms. There were the expected male and female nudes but I didn't think any were particularly racy. What wasn't expected was a room of self-portraits over something like a 20 year period, including one photo of Robert in drag. How the face changes with fluffed hair and lipstick on his full lips. Most of the photos are head and shoulders but one includes the artist bending over holding a whip to his bum as if is a tail. I suppose that warrants the earlier sign.

Something I liked about many of the photos on display is their clarity of line, very black and white and almost architectural, with little scope for shades of grey. There's also something distinctly New York about many of the photos that makes me think they probably couldn't have been taken anywhere else. Maybe it's the stillness (there is movement in only two of the photos) or the focus of the sitters staring straight into the lens?

If you're in the area it's definitely worth popping into on the fourth floor of the Tate Modern.

Goodnight Lou Reed

The news is spreading that Lou Reed died today. That's sad. As ever, there seems to be a rush to be the first to post an RIP message on twitter or facebook. This is a new phenomenon, a trend courtesy of social media allowing us, mere ordinary people, to say our own farewells. I won't say RIP since I don't know whether he'd want to rest in peace. For all I know he'd want to get the biggest amp and turn it up to 11 and scream out random lyrics over endless power chords. Forever.

I first came across Lou Reed when I heard 'Walk On The Wildside' on the Johnnie Walker Radio 1 show when I was 12. It was an odd song, oddly mature for the times and I had no idea what it was about but the sound, those strange words and the lazy bass made it memorable. And those 'coloured girls', the Thunderthighs singing backing vocals. I didn't buy 'Transformer' then but bought it a few years later in about 1976.

In 1978 I saw 'Street Hassle', the 12" single, and bought it. That's when I first heard The Velvet Underground. Two VU songs ('Waiting For The Man' and 'Venus In Furs') were on the 'B' side. That gave me another avenue to explore.

Lou wasn't at the top of my list to buy new music from but I gradually filled out my collection, slowly but surely. There was always something interesting going on in his songs. I don't think I ever bought a Lou Reed album when it first came out, there was always a delay of years. There are already lots of Lou Reed compilation albums out there and I suspect more will appear.

One of my favourite albums is 'New York', full of songs that sum up the city he lived in and that had been one of his long-standing muses. Another is 'Songs For Drella' with John Cale about Andy Warhol. I play both every now and then, probably more than any of his other albums other than 'Transformer'.

Eno is reported to have once commented that everyone who bought the Velvet's first album when it came out went out and started a band. I've no idea if that's true or not but I hope that when people hear the news about Lou they all play a song or two and remember Lou. I also hope that people who've never heard of him look him up and listen for the first time. Maybe that will inspire a new artist to achieve greatness in one of the arts and trace their beginnings back to Lou. That would be good.

Goodnight Lou.