Illegal Exhibition

Since today was supposed to be the only non-rainy day of the long weekend, we started out the day over in Victoria Park, which was being transformed this weekend into Paradise Gardens, a free festival billed as "a modern-day pleasure garden"--while I'm not quite sure about that synopsis of the offerings, Victoria Park's always nice for a stroll, and we walked around, taking in the carnival atmosphere and beautiful weather.

Upon closer examination, the only thing that seemed to make these cookies "American" was that they were enormous.

We spotted this odd sight and walked over for a closer look:

After a bit of walking around, the group's leader summoned the members back with a musical interlude,

everyone lined up,

and they were off!

Even stranger was this pair--they waddled around the field, sneaking up on people (who were understandably surprised when they turned around):

Who's this strong man showing off his new bathing costume?

At the House of Fairy Tales, one man played guitar while four smaller musicians played along:

We left Victoria Park and made our way down to Tate Modern, passing this vendor of "the world's smallest kite" (it was indeed wee--although the long string means that you can't see the kite itself in this photo):

We missed today's Olympiad events, but there was plenty of evidence of general mayhem on the "field":

Several games were set up for people to play (you had to make up the rules as you went along):

The ping pong was a hit with today's crowd:

We took part in Willem de Ridder's "Illegal Exhibition" audio tour, which took us to two floors of Tate Modern, pointing out artwork that he said he had placed in the gallery without the Tate's knowledge, but which were actually just signs of wear and tear in the building!

This couple was ahead of us in the tour for a while, so we got a few previews of the next places we'd be taken, like this corner, where de Ridder told us about the art representing all the planets that he had secretly placed on the floor.

de Ridder's next piece of "sculpture" was hidden up in a narrow opening by the staircase:

We were then instructed to go the back of the "automatic staircase" to see something de Ridder had placed there especially for us:

"It's wonderful, isn't it?" the soothing voice said in our ears.

Our next stop was at a "secret landscape" that "no one at the Tate will show you, because they don't even know that it's there." (It's at the top of the pillar.)

Just like our fellow tour-takers, we wedged ourselves into this narrow space, as instructed,

and were treated to a sighting of a "river":

Elsewhere, de Ridder explained the sculpture (six circles) and painting (in white) that he had done:

We were told to go past this barrier and enter the left door

where more art was "hidden" in the green light. Unfortunately, we had barely entered the alcove when a member of Tate staff followed us in and told us to leave. When we said, "It's part of an audio tour," he said, "I know it is, but your tour ends HERE" and gruffly showed us back out past the "No entry" sign. At first we were unsure whether this was meant to be part of the tour, but after de Ridder kept talking about the art in the green room, we were really unsure. We found out when we returned the audio guides that there had been some trouble with security not liking what was going on and that we definitely should not have been kicked out!

Another de Ridder piece was of red earth and water all around:

We were even instructed to leave the gallery (which felt really strange, since some people looked at us, concerned that we were stealing the headsets!) and walk along the "river" and turn to walk along the "canal" that de Ridder had placed here, just for us.

Back inside the gallery, we were told to place our hands on the railing to feel the vibrations of the building (which were surprisingly strong) and note various pieces of art on the railing itself.

The tour ended with a nice little spiel which basically said that everyone makes art every day and art is what you make it--all in all, we enjoyed the strange little tour! We finished just in time for a performance that was taking place in the crowded hall:

After a bit of Mozart,

a giant tarp was unfolded

and a list of salad ingredients was read out.

After the busy kitchen staff finished all their chopping (the enormous hall filled with the smell of herbs as they were chopped), down came the salad ingredients onto the tarp!

Of course, you can't have a salad without dressing, can you?

The salad needed tossing, although a bit of miscalculation regarding weight meant it wasn't exactly expertly tossed,

but some garden rakes soon took care of that.

With the help of shovels, the salad was scooped into serving bowls

and then served to members of the audience.

Here's the bit of art I had for an afternoon snack!

While I lucked out with a nice mix of yellow and red tomatoes, radishes, and greens, Bob got a more uniform plate of greens, some of which were rather questionably chopped:

He wasn't alone in this!

As we left the building, we saw some evidence of a musical performance we missed earlier this afternoon.

By now we were both rather hungry (the salad definitely wasn't enough for a meal) and so we headed over to Brick Lane for our favourite bagels and brownies. As we walked and ate, we passed this great mural, just inside a locked gate,

and one of two rail bridges that were recently craned into place for the new tube line being built in east London. The bridge looks so strange without anything on either side!