9th October 2007 — 6th April 2008
The
eighth Unilever Series commission for the Turbine Hall sees
Colombian artist, Doris Salcedo realise the phrase 'less is
more'. Rather than adding to the cavernous space in Tate Modern,
Salcedo has carved a 167m long sculpture into the existing
concrete floor of the former Bankside power station.
The work appears to begin at the foot of the sloped entrance to the
Tate Modern, as a barely visible hairline fracture and widens into a
crevice that runs the entire length of the hall, disappearing under a
glass part of the wall at the far end of the space. The work draws
close boundaries between being 2D and 3D, as from the upper floors of
the gallery Shibboleth could be a drawing that is carefully etched into
the concrete floor. At its deepest point however, the line is about two
feet deep, where opposing sides overlap to restrict your view into the
supposed void. The crack splinters at certain points, leaving
subsidiary fissures which tale off and disappear. The work
geographically runs parallel to the nearby River Thames, and it
similarly divides the space in two, as the river does to London.
On first impressions, Shibboleth could be the result of some kind of
disaster but the opposing sides of the crack appear to fit too neatly;
the floor looks as though it has been prised apart and there is no
carnage from devastation. The concrete is carefully polished with
barely a scratch on it. It gives the impression that something has
happened but without anything actually having happened, and thus
reminds me of the rides at Universal Studios that demonstrate special
effects, where the rocks rumble from side to side to create illusion of
movement.
I have visited the work on several occasions, and each time I
became fascinated with how people interacted with it. The fracture
subtly determines the flow and direction of movement of the viewers
through the space and bizarrely very few stray from it - some walking
directly on top of it, others straddling it with one foot on either
side; they follow the line like a trail of breadcrumbs. In the same way
that tourists pose with Big Ben and the leaning Tower of Pisa, I was
witness to numerous visitors posing with parts of their body
strategically wedged into the crack as though someone had pressed the
pause button in a cartoon. This interaction gives the work a humorous
element and prevents it from being too bogged down with ideas of
social, political and guerrilla warfare.
The method as to how the work has been made is something that
Salcedo refuses to reveal, and I spent a while in the space trying to
figure it out logically. It continues to puzzle me, as once I'm
convinced I have it figured out, then realise I am wrong. As a result I
left the Turbine Hall feeling unsatisfied and slightly frustrated,
however this is a necessary strength to the work because it keeps it
lingering in your mind.
See AV23 for the review on Doris Salcedo's coinciding exhibition at the White Cube, Hoxton Square.
LW
