Friday, November 16, 2007

Tate goes Crackers

I had an hour between meetings at UK's uber regulator Ofcom so popped into the Tate Modern. Outside lurked a monster spider (above) ready to devour London like some cast iron War of the Worlds.

At least it was solid, unlike the latest installation in the great Turbine Hall, which was to be honest, a bit crackers. Branching its way from one end of the hall to the other there was something like this:

The shoe (mine - to go with the "I'm going to a meeting" suit) is shown for scale.

Its really deep and apparently they had to break open the old concrete floor to some depth before laying new concrete with a built in crack.

Couple of thoughts spring to mind:
- thats a lot of work - real construction work - just to make a point about divisions
- its surprising health and safety haven't closed it down
- not only did they have to dig deep to create it but they will have to dig deep to undo it too
- there are lots of other cracks in the Tate (ok, not so crevice like) but still noticeable - wouldn't they have done?
- after walked along it from one end to the other there's not much else to say or do

So went to see an exhibition that was a bit disappointing apart from the t-shirt:

But the view across the Thames to St Pauls under translucent autumn sunshine was as beautiful as ever. With or without a giant cast iron spider.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just read that there have been health and safety concerns about the installation, causing about 15 injuries in the first month!

(http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22822555-5012749,00.html)

JP said...

When I went they were Tate staff at each entrance handing out a flyer saying watch your step, probably in reaction to that report you spotted.

The previous installation of slides was GREAT fun!