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October 12, 2007
Art endangering life
The Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern is one of my favourite spaces; incomparable for the staging of - arguably the conception of - truly monumental art. Anish Kapoor's whimsical monstrosities are an obvious fit, where else to interact with Carsten Höller's slides and then there is the greatest installation I have ever missed: The Weather Project by Olafur Eliasson.
Now the Turbine Hall is home to a bloody great crack in the floor (more images here).
A Tate spokesman said this afternoon: "We can confirm that three visitors missed their footing and tripped in the Turbine Hall at the opening event. They were attended to immediately by Tate security staff trained in first aid but there have been no serious injuries. Twelve thousand people visited the installation on the first day and there have been no further incidents," a spokeswoman said.
But one onlooker said: "We saw the first victim, a young woman who went into it with both feet up to just below her knees. She had to be dragged out by her friends. As we watched to see whether she was okay, an older woman deliberately stepped on it, lurched forward and landed on the ground. She told us she thought the crack was painted on the floor."
I gather the installation cost about £300,000 and took more than six months to complete... and cheap at the price. Love live Doris Salcedo! Death to the demoness Allegra Geller!
Posted by Ghost of a flea at October 12, 2007 08:14 AM
Comments
The Weather thing looks pretty interesting, but I don't think you could convince me to fork out cash to see a big crack in the floor.
Not too interested in the state of immigrant integration in Europe, but very, very interested in how this thing got installed and what will become of it afterward. Did they just put in a new floor layer over the existing one? Is that within the load-bearing tolerances of the foundation? Or did they actually take chunks out of the real floor, requiring replacement when the exhibit ends? How does the crack affect the structural integrity of the space? There used to be turbines there so obviously it can take a great deal of weight, but how much can you screw with it? If it's an integral part of the real floor, will they be filling it in or leaving it after the exhibit ends?
Bollocks to the artist's description, I want to know about the engineering aspects.
Posted by: Chris Taylor ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.ghostofaflea.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at October 12, 2007 10:05 AM
My thoughts exactly excepting I want to look at it precisely to see how she did it. The "divisions" rhetoric is so much dross; the art is entirely in the engineering. Given the costs of basic plumbing or roof repair in the UK, I am astonished the bill for this only comes it at 300k.
Posted by: Ghost of a flea at October 12, 2007 10:35 AM
And, I should add, in the fact it is there. I love it that so many people appear to assume a whopping crack in the floor must be a simulation or, in so far as it is present, that it must be safe. Salcedo is wrong to dumb it down to vacuous social commentary. This is a piece about reality or, to be more specific, those ruptures in our symbol-systems Jacques Lacan described as "The Real".
Posted by: Ghost of a flea at October 12, 2007 10:40 AM
It's Art, and it's Performance Art! It makes me want to grab my hunting seat and spend a day.
Posted by: OregonGuy at October 12, 2007 02:03 PM
My first thought was to imagine the lawsuits if this had been installed in the States or Canada.
Posted by: Ghost of a flea at October 12, 2007 02:16 PM
How does one incur "INstallation" costs for EXcavating from the floor? ;-)
And how can they not think to put a bunch of furry ropes around this?
Posted by: Kelvin at October 12, 2007 10:18 PM
"And how can they not think to put a bunch of furry ropes around this?"
Am I wrong in thinking the injured people are meant to be part of the exhibit? You know, audience participation and all that. Albeit involuntary.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at October 13, 2007 08:36 PM
