Mira Schendel exhibition

My mother recently took my sister and I to the Mira Schendel exhibition in the Tate Modern so we could take notes for a project we're going to do on her. I usually start to find exhibitions boring after the first seven minutes (Especially ones with modern art - I mean, who treks into central London to see a blue canvas slit in the middle or a table on its side?!?) but it was actually ok! Even a bit fun! Fine, it was fun. We spent about three and a half hours there in total, counting a lunch break after the the first 45 mins. I now have about four or five pages worth of notes which I am going to use for some kind of project. I don't know much about the project yet, what it will be about and how I'm going to do everything, so I will check with my mum in a minute. But I think I'm just going to read through my notes and try to remember what I liked - then see what I can do with that. Like, can I re-create one of her works? How would I change it? What ideas do I get from her? For example I know she like Chinese art so I could do some Chinese-style art and not try to make it like Mira's. Or mix a bunch of different things together, like Chinese-style art + Mira style art (This could mean so many different things) + Materials she liked to use or that were in her exhibition, that I like + A mix of her different works. So I am going to be thinking about that today.

You might be wondering about what my notes say (Or you might be wondering what you can have for lunch... There's always that tuna mayo leftover from Thursday, right?) Well my notes are just about which ones of her work I like, what's interesting, what materials she uses, stuff about her and some really quick, "Sketches" of her work.

About Mira Schendel - here are some things I know about her:

1. Schendel isn't her maiden name; she only got the name, "Schendel" when she married.

2. In her work she does something called, "Abstraction," which means simplifying something to its most basic form.

3. She uses, "Minimalism," which means not making her work really complicated or busy - just keeping it really simple. An example of minimalism is taking four canvases, painting one green, one blue, one pink and one yellow and putting them in a room together.

4. She was interested in philosophy, both Eastern and Western, and sometimes combined them in her art work.

5. Her job used to be making postcards.

6. She's very famous in Brazil.

My favourite of Schendel's work in the exhibition were the hanging pieces of paper with writing on them. They were at different levels, and some were further to the left, some to the right - and some were further forward in the room, some backwards.