Cracking Art, Tate Modern!
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Every autumn, Tate Modern commissions an artist to fill the Turbine Hall. Over the last seven years, we've seen a giant spider, gleaming sunlight, and slides. As it's October again, HITC sent a reader-writer to see what we get this time: A crack!
For those who have never seen The Unilever Series (now in its eight year), a new installation is introduced every autumn in the almost 180m long Turbine Hall. And over the years, we have seen very different things from the fantastic Weather Project, basking the hall in warm sunlight, to the Test Site consisting of several slides from the different levels of the gallery down to the ground floor.
This year, Columbian artist Doris Salcedo took on the task and came up with an installation called Shibboleth. It is one thing to read the liner notes of the installation that is "addressing a long legacy of racism and colonialism that underlies the modern world". It is another to describe what it actually is: a 167m long crack in the concrete floor covering the entire length of the hall.
And the best thing about the crack is that it is brilliant!
First of all, it's beautifully made. Visitor strolls along and (whilst trying not to slip into it), can't help to stare into it and at the steel mesh underneath the floor that is apparently torn apart in the middle.
Secondly, it makes you think - maybe about rifts in society, but maybe more simply about how they actually got this crack into the floor. The artist keeps her silence about this although there have already been engineers on the case to reverse engineer the hole, so to say.
And lastly, if last weekend's crowd is anything to go by, it does what the best installations of the series do: it develops its own dynamic. People gather in the Turbine Hall, wander around, gain a new perspective on a stunning piece of architecture, and interact with it and with each other.
Well cracked, Doris Salcedo!
This year, Columbian artist Doris Salcedo took on the task and came up with an installation called Shibboleth. It is one thing to read the liner notes of the installation that is "addressing a long legacy of racism and colonialism that underlies the modern world". It is another to describe what it actually is: a 167m long crack in the concrete floor covering the entire length of the hall.
And the best thing about the crack is that it is brilliant!
First of all, it's beautifully made. Visitor strolls along and (whilst trying not to slip into it), can't help to stare into it and at the steel mesh underneath the floor that is apparently torn apart in the middle.
Secondly, it makes you think - maybe about rifts in society, but maybe more simply about how they actually got this crack into the floor. The artist keeps her silence about this although there have already been engineers on the case to reverse engineer the hole, so to say.
And lastly, if last weekend's crowd is anything to go by, it does what the best installations of the series do: it develops its own dynamic. People gather in the Turbine Hall, wander around, gain a new perspective on a stunning piece of architecture, and interact with it and with each other.
Well cracked, Doris Salcedo!
Here Is The Writer : Billy No Box
Billy No Box has worked in the city for six years, and currently works in Derivatives for a North American bank. He enjoys playing golf, reading books by Umberto Eco, singing "Copacabana" in the shower and at karaoke bars, and occasionally updating his blog about London and everything else.
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