After Dark

Last Friday myself and a small group went along to a late-night opening of the Gothic Nightmares exhibition at Tate Britain. I arrived quite early and it was fun watching the transition of regular people coming in at dusk before the goth contingent started to arrive after nightfall.

Apart from the 18th and 19th century pictures of wispy maidens, imps, smiling-death, witches and zombie horses were a number of more modern exhibits and events there just for that night only. As a result the place was completely heaving, making it difficult to see the actual pictures while preserving that level of personal space necessary for deep-and-goth-pondering. William Blake's illustrated poetry and the Gillray cartoons were the particular highlight for me. Well, those and just the idea of a painting with the title "Mad Kate".

I think the exhibition is well worth seeing but the crowds made the whole thing appear rather shambolic. It was also a mistake to put the Bauhaus sound installation into the same room as the much louder @mbassaors.

I'll probably pop in again to ponder the pictures properly on a less crowded day and the Tate powers seemed to anticipate this by handing out free open-ended passes to come back.