London (AFP)
The Tate Modern, the most visited museum in London along with the British Museum, has been groomed, virus obliges, to reopen on Monday and welcome visitors who have booked on the internet, if possible masked, that the signposted routes will take through collections and exhibitions.
Closed for 4 months, the young museum (it turned 20 in May) is preparing to receive initially mainly British visitors, the pandemic of the new coronavirus having permanently removed the tourists who made up almost half of its 6 million visitors per year.
The museum has the ambition to present a program comprising more works by artists from ethnic diversity, exhibition director Achim Borchardt-Hume told AFP on Friday. A desire symbolized by the immense fountain erected in the large turbine hall by Kara Walker, an African-American artist.
"Fons Americanus" is the ironic counterpart to the Queen Victoria Memorial located opposite Buckingham Palace.
The sovereign becomes Queen Vicky in this fountain which recalls some unpleasant truths about the slave past of Great Britain and the United States, connected by the water of the Atlantic Ocean through which the slave trade was carried out.
Visitors will also be able to explore the large exhibition dedicated to Andy Warhol, which has so far only been open for 5 days.
Tate Modern sisters Tate Liverpool, Tate StIves (Cornwall) and Tate Britain (London) also reopen Monday, with the latter featuring an exhibition dedicated to 19th-century English illustrator and printmaker Aubrey Beardsley, who will travel then at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.
© 2020 AFP