crack in the tate
Monday, October 8th, 2007believe it! the turbine hall in London’s tate modern has an enormous crack running its entire length culminating in a great hole at the lowest point. No structural damage has occured but questions are being asked as to just what went wrong… jaques herzog and pierre de meuron are said to have gone into hiding……. ok.. if you are still reading i will let you in on a little secret…. the image below is of the latest installation in the turbine hall by artist Doris Salcedo (you may remember 1550 chairs at the Istanbul Biennale in 2003). The crack however is real and will leave a permanent scar in the gallery. Salcedo’s work titled “Shibboleth“ is a statement about racism and the gap between white european’s and the rest of humanity. Wire mesh embeded within the crack symbolises borders and segregation, “The space which illegal immigrants occupy is a negative space. And so this piece is a negative space” (Salcedo). The hole is not an optical illusioon and is said to have taken a year to prepare and 5 weeks to install. The exact method of its construction is said to be a secret, however i assure you i will be heading down as soon as possible with my magnifying glass and will return with an answer! read on
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