Paperjam

The big crack in the floor of the Tate Modern

Art // Jim // 24th October 2007

The latest in the Unilever series of big art installations at the Tate Modern (which has also included the amazing - yet fucking hippy behaviour inducing Weather Project, the spooky Raw Materials and the big slides that I never got to have a go on) is Shibboleth by the Columbian artist Doris Salcedo.

It is a big crack that runs the length of the mighty turbine hall and as far as I can tell does two things:

1) Creates a imperfect and slightly disturbing flaw in what is a huge and imposing formal space. A reminder that anything no matter how big or grand is subject to physical laws of stress and decay.

2) Provides an area for kids to trip over and fall partially into, while their parents say things like "Tarquin! Wilhemina! don't do that" while making no attempt to stop them at all.

From checking up on the Tate web site the work is actually about "the shaky ideological foundations on which Western notions of modernity are built" which you can sort of see. However it is also said to address and comment on issues of racism, which I must admit I am struggling to get my head around.

Still, it is quite interesting and worth dashing in to see if you are knocking around the south bank in the next six months. Not nearly as affecting as some of the previous entries in the series though. The dozen irish blokes who turned up with a crate of Guinness and an accordian player looked particularly confused.