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Bruce Nauman, Raw Materials - Tate Modern

Art // Steve // 1st November 2004

I can imagine receiving the commission for the Unilever Series at the Tate Modern being a dream come true and a nightmare at the same time - a dream because everyone with the slightest interest in modern art who is near London during the months it's on will go and see it, but then a nightmare because you've got to follow the likes of Anish Kapoor's immense sculpture Marsyas, and Olafur Eliasson's Weather Project, which everyone seemed to love, lying on the floor ("...like a bunch of fucking hippies...") - making shapes out of bodies, eating a picnic, and taking photos (in an art gallery? And we're allowed to?)

So Bruce Nauman doesn't try and compete with the visual impact of previous exhibitions, instead placing pairs of speakers along the long side walls of the Turbine Hall, all playing what amounts to an audio greatest hits/remix collection of his video work. The speakers are quite directional, so you don't get the huge splurging mess of sound you might expect, rather there is a general murmuring, with some pieces louder and more cutting than others.

As with the Weather Project, everyone has a different reaction to it, which is all part of the entertainment. Some preferred to stand right next to the speaker listening to each track : I preferred to walk down the middle, that way you get an odd slight phasing sensation as the last pieces recedes and the next piece comes into focus. It brought back memories of seeing some of previous pieces, such as the jester madly leaping up and down, caught in time repeating "no no no no", and the two sweating, fag smoking actors playing with vocal inflection to wring different meanings out of the same sentence (frowns "He was a good boy", smiles : "She was a good girl"). My favorite was the piece right at the end of the hall, two voices soothingly reciting "I'll talk to you / You'll talk to me / They'll listen to me / They'll listen to you" etc.

I've got to say though, I don't understand why the Tate are not permitting photography or recording in the exhibition - although I didn't see this enforced by Tate staff while I was there. For a start, there's nothing to photograph, barring some rather long speakers (which some people were taking photos of.. you total bastards! Don't you realise that's Nauman's/Unilever's intellectual property you're daylight robbing?) and the bare Turbine Hall itself. And even if you wear a big, very stupid looking hat in an attempt to disguise you trying to do a binaural recording with a pair of PZM microphones strapped to your head, because it's taken out of context of the Turbine Hall it will sound totally different.

I found it slightly underwhelming compared to Marsyas and the Weather Project, but it's good fun to play with all the same - walking up and down quickly, it's like walking through a strange town, catching brief parts of conversation - slower and you think you are going mad. I realised it had succeeded at Marylebone, when I heard the polite English robot insisting that I should "mind the gap" reverberating off the tiles in the tube station, and thought "that sounds fantastic". Someone should sneak in there, sample it, and make a pop record out of it...

Links

Tate Raw Materials Flash presentation

Simulate the experience with this Flash version. Well it's nothing much like it really, but you get a flavour.