The Tate Modern in London explains the secrets of the painting “Untitled (London Bridge)” by Kerry James Marshall and other works of art that you can visit

There is a fundamental difference between seeing and observing. While seeing is staying with the superficial aspects of things, observing is becoming aware and is linked to thinking. The same happens with a work of art. Walking through the museum and just stopping for a few seconds in front of it is not the same as taking your time to admire what that painting or sculpture really tells. What do you want to tell us? What reflection does the artist want to lead us to? What does it make us feel?

For him Tate Modern from London you have to “look slowly” if you really want to get to know a work of art and establish a more personal connection with it through your own discoveries.

Untitled (London Bridge) by Kerry James Marshall

With pictures like these, the theory explained above is more than clear. Can you imagine standing in front of a work of such dimensions and only spending five seconds on it? It is mission impossible.

You can still see the pigeons that are in the lower left corner, the red bus and the two dogs that are walking happily. Now, if you look a little closer, you would realize that there are actually three of them and that, contrary to what the title of the painting implies, they actually Marshall’s London Bridge is located on Arizona’s Lake Havusu. How do we know? Keep looking closely and you’ll find out.

Jackson Pollock’s Yellow Islands

The issue becomes more complicated when we have to try to understand what an abstract painting tells us or makes us feel. At the Tate Modern in London we can admire the work of Jackson Pollockspecifically, the Yellow Islands.

You could stop in front of this painting for seconds, minutes and hours which, as you are looking to see something in particular, will be impossible. The question here is to introspect and ask ourselves: What do I feel when I see this work? Does it remind me of something? On several occasions, the artist himself confessed that he never sought to illustrate things in his painting, but rather to express them spontaneously and immediately.

Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain

If there is an artist who invites us to interpretation, it is Marcel Duchamp. What at first glance could only be a urinal, hides one of the most famous demands of the 20th century.

For Duchamp, the meaning and value of art should not be linked to the manufacture of the object, but rather it should express the artist’s idea. And that anything could be art, as long as the artist chose it and called it as such. Nowadays, galleries are filled with all kinds of objects, but back then you could say that art was much more traditional.

Just as he did in his time, Duchamp makes us question what is art and what is concept of originality. Well, what was initially only a provocative work is today considered the most influential work of art of the 20th century. Quite a paradox, right?

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