The New Tate Britain is nice, bright, big and new. There's a big spiral staircase now in the entrance. The slightly peculiar pattern is form Roman thermal baths and it's no surprise that the staircase was mighty hard to build and only had a millimetre of tolerance in it. What's really nice is they've also opened up all the side staircases as well and opened up a a lot of space downstairs with windows that now look outside. That gives it a much niceer and less claustrophobic feel than it had before.
What I hadn't realised is that the new main display, which has been up since about May, is now in chronological order. The aim being to free visitors up to see the art the way they want to and not be forced into seeing things as movements and styles. Plus there's no big label bit in each room dictating how you see thw works with introductory text. It's just about letting people look. There's also been an attempt to bring out more pieces, especially by women and to create a slight more eclectic display of the amazing works the Tate had. This new non dictatorial hang is as good as the spiral staircase - if not better!
Review by Robert Dunt, Founder of ArtTop10.com and artist - www.robertdunt.com
