Art on the water

So much of contemporary art revolves around cults of the young and use of new media that it is unusual to see the singular pursuit of an older generation to make sense of their turbulent world

The British are having an extended Indian summer after a long, cold spring. That is a great inducement to improving tempers; together with a recovering economy, good high-school exam results, the arrival of the Royal Baby and thousands of tourists, London is in party mode. Among the liveliest of outings is along the historic riverfront between London Bridge and the undulating steel suspension of Millenium Bridge. Packed between the jigsaw of cobbled medieval paths and waterside promenades are Shakespeare's restored Globe Theatre; Sir Francis Drake's galleon The Golden Hinde, in which he crossed the Strait of Magellan in 1578; the original of the prison known as "the clink"; and, above all, one of the world's biggest galleries, devoted to modern and contemporary art since 1900, the Tate Modern.

The Tate Modern's oddity and originality is first of all its building - 371,350 square feet of space over seven levels in an abandoned 1940s power station redesigned as a huge, throbbing art house. Equally, it is the way it's run - combining a permanent collection of world art with a changing roster of international shows, and financing special projects through public and private sponsorship. Each of the main exhibition floors is divided into free-to-the-public shows - Piet Mondrian, Cubist art and Modernist Photography, for example, combined with works by the Indian artist Zarina Hashmi titled "Structure and Clarity" - and separate paid-for displays that have cost a great deal to compile. Usually, the big-ticket solo shows on art legends like Frida Kahlo or Marc Chagall are instant sell-outs.

But this summer the Tate is doing what great institutions should be doing - it is giving major retrospectives to artists who ought to be legends in their lifetime. Their contribution may have escaped the world's notice, but their triumphant individuality has emerged unscathed through the convulsions of their strife-torn countries. The lives of 83-year-old Sudanese artist Ibrahim el-Salahi and the Lebanese Saloua Raouda Choucair, now 97 and ailing, are as powerful as their art. Both survived cultural and political constraints, studying art in European capitals, before returning to their countries to take traditional forms - calligraphy in Mr el-Salahi's case, Islamic forms in Ms Choucair's - and abstract them in a variety of media, from canvas, dense line drawing and architectural sculpture. In the process, they gave African and Middle Eastern modernism a lucid identity.

For more than half a century they pursued their visionary practice, often in the face of adversity. Mr el-Salahi was imprisoned after a 1975 coup for "anti-government activities"; one of Ms Choucair's canvases is riddled with glass shrapnel from a bomb explosion outside her studio.

So much of contemporary art revolves around cults of the young and use of new media that it is unusual to see the singular pursuit of an older generation, unhampered by the pressure of the market or public acclaim, to make sense of their turbulent world. Significantly also, their work is a hopeful dimension to the turmoil in Africa and the Middle East.

In the current style of museums and galleries as interactive places for family outings on a large scale, the Tate likes to project itself as something between a funfair and a learning centre. There are cafes, restaurants and bars on three floors; also shops stocking the best in art books, stationery, toys and souvenirs with spectacular views up and down the river with its perpetual frieze of tugboats and tourist cruisers. Children have a blast, with online participatory animation projects produced jointly with Google. With more than five million visitors last year, it was one of the most visited art galleries of the world.

Entrance to the Tate Modern is free (though not to all shows); and, as the government pays only 40 per cent of costs, the trustees must find the rest. To this end they have left no stone unturned without compromising on quality. They now advertise the "Tate Boat" running every 40 minutes on the Thames between Tate Britain and Tate Modern: you can now spend the day seeing art in two great galleries for the price of one fare.