Tate - Liverpool

A key reason why I chose to study fine art at Liverpool John Moores University, was Liverpool as a city. It has the most galleries of any outside of London, including the Tate Liverpool. When I arrived, there was a Keith Haring exhibition showing, so one of the very first things I did was go and see it. The actual presentation of his works was amazing; they were curated in a way in which I could view each painting individually in such detail and still stand back to see them interlinking and all working together. His cartoon-like style is so effective, especially when

contrasted with some of the serious, hard-hitting topics behind the pieces, such as safe sex to discourage the transmittance of AIDS, which was a key cultural issue at the peak of Haring's career. It almost makes politics accessible and inoffensive, almost making the hard-hitting topics easier to view and understand. Tate Liverpool houses some wonderful artworks permanently, such as a personal favourite of mine, Venus of the Rags. This is a renaissance-esque sculpture of the goddess, Venus, surrounded by piles of thrown-away clothes. The colour contrast between the white marble figure and the bold, bright clothing was what first drew my eye to it, and after researching further into the meanings behind it, I loved it more. It represents the materialistic world we live in today, and the underlying theme of vanity which runs deep in society. Venus is the goddess of beauty and is shying away from this modern notion, showing the drastic changes in standards for women. Furthermore, it almost poses the question of 'what is beauty?'. Clearly, it is a man-made product, as many years ago, our modern day notions were shunned upon by the likes of Goddesses and figureheads of feminity. Furthermore, Tate Liverpool houses a great painting by L.S. Lowry. His style and approach towards paintings are something which I can personally relate to. Lowry focuses on the working class in industrial Manchester, presenting them like matchstick men, painted in dreary tones of brown and grey. The dull atmosphere they give is so accurate to how life was in a big city during that time, and he perfectly encapsulates the lives of the working class. The painting in the Tate Liverpool is the perfect example to sum up the majority of Lowry's works.