Tate Modern - Miro Exhibition

Welcome back to Access London everyone, thanks once again for your continued support for disability access and awareness in the capital.

Today's post looks at the Tate Modern and one of its current exhibitions - Miro. I wrote a post on Tate Britain a couple of months ago which describes the access to that gallery, please scroll down to previous posts if you are interested in visiting that attraction also.

Joan Miró
The Farm, 1921-2
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Gift of Mary Hemingway
© Successió Miró/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2011




Tate Modern is situated right on the river front between Southwark and and London Bridge tube stations. The Thames pathway that runs along past the gallery is a wide and accessible walkway along the river Thames and is a great way to visit the gallery. You can also travel between the two London Tate galleries on the Tate River Boat which is accessible to wheelchair users. Alternatively, if you are driving to the gallery, there are 5 disabled parking spaces onsite that can be booked in advance by calling 020 7887 8888.

The gallery is open 10.00-18.00 Sunday to Thursday and 10.00-22.00 Fridays and Saturdays.

Joan Miró
The Escape Ladder 1940
Museum of Modern Art, New York
© Successió Miró/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2011




Both the Main Entrance on Holland Street and the River Entrance on Queen's Walk are accessible to those with disabilities. Inside the gallery there are lifts to all exhibition floors and there are accessible toilets on each floor also.

In addition, the gallery has 10 wheelchairs and 2 mobility scooters that can be booked in advanced and used within the gallery for those who do not have their own - please call 020 7887 8888.

The Tate Modern currently has its Miro exhibition running until September 11th 2011. This is a relatively large exhibition running throughout more than a dozen rooms in the gallery. It depicts the work of Joan Miro, the renowned Spanish Surrealist painter, and exhibits work from across six decades of his carrer.

Joan Miró
Still Life with Old Shoe 1937
Museum of Modern Art, New York
© Successió Miró/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2011



"Joan Miro's works come to London in the first major retrospective here for nearly 50 years. Renowned as one of the greatest Surrealist painters, filling his paintings with luxuriant colour, Miro worked in a rich variety of styles. This is a rare opportunity to enjoy more than 150 paintings, drawings, sculptures and prints from moments across the six decades of his career."

The captions and free booklet you are given upon entry to the exhibition describe moments in his personal and professional life and include revelations about this very political artist - including his involvement in the Spanish Civil War and subsequent exile. With many of Miro's most striking pieces of work featured in the exhibition, it is one not to be missed.

Joan Miró
May 68, 1968 - 1973
Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona
Photo: Jaume Blassi
© Successió Miró/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2011





The exhibition rooms are very accessible and large with plenty of room for wheelchairs and mobility scooters. There is a concession price for disabled visitors and 1 carer can enter for free with every disabled guest.

Tate Modern also has a dedicated Access Programme that includes: Hearing Loops, BSL Multimedia Guides, BSL Talks, Large-Print Caption and Exhibition Guides, Audio-Described Highlight Tours, Touch Tours and Visual Descriptive Tours. For more information on any of these and other access queries, please call 020 7887 8888.



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Tate Britain - Watercolour Exhibition Part 2

Welcome back to Access London everyone and thank you once again for supporting this site and disability access and awareness.

Today's short post continues on from yesterday's on Tate Britain's Watercolour exhibition. For more information on the gallery, exhibition, its access, times and prices, please scroll down to yesterday's post.

As promised, today's post is an interview with Tate Britain's Community and Access Curator, Nora Razian.....




AL: Who are you and what is your role at the Tate?
NR: Nora Razian. I'm the Community and Access Curator at Tate Britain.

AL: Can you briefly explain how Tate Britain is accessible to those with disabilities and mobility problems?
NR: All Tate Britain's entries are accessible to those with mobility problems; we also have elevators in the gallery and disabled parking spaces for visitors that can be booked in advance.

AL: Do you have a current special offer or exhibition that is accessible to those with disabilities?
NR: All our exhibitions are accessible to those with disabilities. In addition, we have events such as, BSL and lipspeaking-assisted talks around key works in the collection or around works in an exhibition. We also offer picture description tours on the collection. These tours can be booked in advance by contacting me directly or through contacting Tate Britain on 020 7887 4946.

AL: Do you have any concessions for disabled visitors and/or their carers?
NR: We offer concession prices to both disabled visitors and their carers.

AL: Can you sum up in 5 words the Tate Britain Experience?
NR: Singular, Dynamic, Enriching, Surprising, Engaging


Access London would like to offer a huge thank you to Nora for taking the time to answer some questions.

Watercolour is on at Tate Britain until the 21st August 2011. To book tickets for the exhibtion, please see the gallery's website: www.tate.org.uk/britain

Please feel free to leave a comment, follow this blog and spread the word about Access London.

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Tate Britain - Watercolour Exhibition

Welcome back to Access London, thank you for your continued support for disability access and awareness in London. After a few week's break, whilst I was on holiday, Access London is back for a busy June.

Today's post is the first of 2 on Tate Britain's Watercolour exhibition.

The Tate Britain is located in Pimlico near Vauxhall Bridge and opens daily from 10am until 6pm. For the Watercolour exhibition, the most convenient entrance is the Manton Entrance on Atterbury Street, off of Millbank. For those in a wheelchair or mobility scooter, there is a long, wide, paved slope down from the pavement level to the entrance which has automatic sliding doors.

Once inside there is a cafe, shop, ticketing hall/collections and toilets, including disabled ones. The exhibition itself is very near to this entrance and you don't need to use a lift to get to it. The exhibition is fairly large and is all on the same level.

Watercolour explores the use of this medium over the last 800 years. The exhibition is divided into rooms, each with its own theme - travel, botanical, portraits, history of watercolour tools, war and many others. The themes are so diverse that I believe anyone will find 1 or 2 rooms that really appeals to them. One of my favourites was the very first room. This included examples of intricately painted books from 800 years ago, protraits inside pendents and maps. The travel room displayed pieces from all over Europe, some of my favourites dipicted scenes in Northern Africa and Italy.

The exhibition ends with how Watercolour is being used today, with examples from Tracey Emin. This exhibition really does have something for everyone plus, you can always stop for luch after and then take a look around the main collection which is free to enter.


Watercolour runs at Tate Britain until the 21st August 2011. It costs £12.70 for an adult to enter the exhibition. For disabled visitors there is a concession to £10.90 - a carer is also admitted for free for each disabled visitor.

The Gallery has 2 parking spaces on-site that can be booked by disabled visitors - to do so, call 020 7887 8888. This number can also be used to book a wheelchair or mobility scooter that can be used around the gallery if you do not have your own.

The Tate's website writes about this exhibition:
"Watercolour at Tate Britain invites you to challenge your preconceptions of what watercolour is. The most ambitious exhibition about watercolour ever to be staged, with works spanning 800 years, this boundary-breaking suvery celebrates the full variety of ways watercolour has been used."



To visit Tate Britain's website and to book tickets for Watercolour, please see www.tate.org.uk

Tomorrow's post will contain an interview with the Community and Access Curator at Tate Britain.

Also to come this month: Love Never Dies, The Wizard of Oz, Miro exhibition at Tate Modern and beginning the celebrations for Phantom of the Opera's 25th Birthday.

The National Gallery - An American Experiment Exhibition - Part 1

Welcome back to Access London, thank you for your continued support for disability access and awareness. Today's post is the first in a two-part series on The National Gallery and, in particular, one of its current exhibitions - 'An American Experiment: George Bellows and The Ashcan Painters'.

I recently visited this exhibition and was amazed by the rich colours and unique style of the artists. The exhibition is part of the National's attempt to showcase American art in the UK. This particular exhibition consists of 12 paintings, never before seen in the UK.

X7314 George Bellows, The Big Dory, 1913, Copyright New Britain Museum of American Art, Harriett Russell Stanley Fund 1944.21. Photo: Alex Morganti






Over half of the paintings in An American Experiment are by George Bellows, the other artists include, William Glackens, George Luks, John Sloan and Robert Henri. The paintings portray landscapes, urban scenes and portraits, all from the beginning of the 20th Century in America.

The National is free to visit and this particular exhibition is also free. The gallery is open from 10am-6pm daily with a late night on Fridays until 9pm. An American Experiment is in Room 1, just past the gift shop that is definitely worth a stop off for postcards of these paintings.

If you use a wheelchair or mobility scooter, the gallery and exhibition are definitely accessible. Although the main entrance to The National, that is on Trafalgar Square, has steps, there is another entrance just next to it called The Getty entrance. This has a gentle slope up to it and a lift inside to take you to the entrance level. Once inside, there is a cafe to the right that is completely accessible. Along the walkway to the left is an accessible toilet and the lifts up to the exhibition floors.

If you are a blue badge holder, you can pre-book a parking space just behind the gallery on Orange Street by calling, 0207 747 2854.

x7307 George Bellows, North River, 1908, Copyright Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Philadelphia, Joseph E. Temple Fund 1909.2





I thoroughly enjoyed visiting the gallery and especially An American Experiment - it certainly opened my eyes to some of the art being produced in America at the beginning of the 20th Century and to a relatively unknown group of artists here in the UK. The exhibition is open until May 30 2011.

In part 2 of this series there will be an interview with the exhibition's curator who will explain more about the paintings, artists and how the exhibition came together. Please visit again tomorrow to see what was said.

Access London has also been fortunate enough to interview 2 people from the education, access and information departments at the gallery, here's what they had to say....

AL: Who are you and what is your role at The National Gallery?
MB: My name is Miranda Baxter and I am the interim Access Officer at the National Gallery, situated within the education department. My colleague and I will share this wonderful opportunity to respond to your questions about access at the National Gallery.
My role as Access Officer is to collaborate with other departments across the gallery, like information, with whom I work very closely to ensure that the quality of visitor experience at the National Gallery continues to be delivered on all levels. In education specifically I organise a variety of BSL and BSL-interpreted talks about paintings and exhibitions at the gallery. Often I work with an adult learning team to design events that resonate cohesively and thematically with the other areas of educational and interpretive provision. I also organise description-based sessions called Art Through Words for Blind and Partially-Sighted Visitors on the last Saturday of every month. Each session focuses on one painting and participants are provided with high quality prints, including close-ups of interesting details. A specially trained educator provides a highly descriptive narrative of the painting, which is further enhanced by multi-sensory elements such as, poetry, story-telling, music and handling objects, as well as lively discussions. The session finishes with a visit to the gallery to see the painting in situ.
CM: My name is Chris Morton and I am the Senior Information Manager at The National Gallery. The Information Department's first responsibility is to provide exceptional service to all our visitors, by offering a warm, professional welcome, doing all we can to make sure they have a successful visit and a positive, enjoyable experience. Information staff are the first point of contact for many visitors, offering help, advice and information on all aspects of The National Gallery, whether navigating the building, exploring the collection or finding out about our huge range of exhibitions, events and activities.

AL: Can you briefly explain how the gallery is accessible to those with mobility problems/disabilities?
CM: The National Gallery provides access and assistance, where possible, to all visitors. The gallery consists of 2 buildings, both of which have level access. Wheelchairs, folding chairs, large-print labels, braille descriptions and large-print descriptions are available for key paintings, as well as audio guides (free for visually impaired visitors) and induction loops; water bowls are available for assistance dogs. The gallery also provides a parking space for Blue Badge Holders which can be booked in advance by contacting the Duty Manager's Office on 020 7747 2854. The gallery also offers a variety of events and lectures for deaf and visually impaired visitors, as my colleague Miranda mentioned above.

AL: Do you have a current exhibition on, available to those with disabilities?
NG: The main temporary exhibition is Jan Gossaert's Renaissance. Please see the gallery's website for further details of current free exhibitions and forthcoming exhibitions at the gallery

AL: Do you have any concessions for disabled visitors and/or their carers?
NG: Disabled visitors are entitled to a concession ticket to paid exhibitions and accompanying carers have free entry. The concession price for Jan Gossaert's Renaissance is £9 and there is a Tuesday afternoon offer from 2.30pm where all visitors entitled to a concession can purchase £5 entry.

AL: Can you sum up in 5 words The National Gallery experience?
NG: Eminent, Elegant, Inspiring, Inclusive and Educational

Access London would like to offer a huge thanks to both Miranda Baxter and Chris Morton for taking the time to answer our questions.

Please feel free to leave a comment, follow the blog and help to spread the word on disability access and awareness. Don't forget tomorrow's post with the curator of An American Experiment.