Check it out (thanks to flickr user Matthew Armstrong):
You all know I’m more of an old master kind of guy, but I’ll be pickled if that’s not cool. That’s 100% cool and equally fascinating intellectually.
Doris Salcedo’s Shibboleth is the first work to intervene directly in the fabric of the Turbine Hall. Rather than fill this iconic space with a conventional sculpture or installation, Salcedo has created a subterranean chasm that stretches the length of the Turbine Hall. The concrete walls of the crevice are ruptured by a steel mesh fence, creating a tension between these elements that resist yet depend on one another. By making the floor the principal focus of her project, Salcedo dramatically shifts our perception of the Turbine Hall’s architecture, subtly subverting its claims to monumentality and grandeur. Shibboleth asks questions about the interaction of sculpture and space, about architecture and the values it enshrines, and about the shaky ideological foundations on which Western notions of modernity are built.
And the Guardian writeth:
Jon Henley on the intriguing crack in the floor of Tate Modern
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By John 2007/10/16 - 14:38
Sorry, but I have to say that Doris´ crack forms part of a groups of work known as Architecture rather than Art. . . as do many conceptual “artworks”. I think it is about time that this type of work was reclassified as such.
By rob 2007/10/16 - 14:48
That’s an interesting opinion. I don’t think I agree that it’s architecture since, for me, “architecture” implies a practical side of function or utility. But it certainly shares a lot with- at least the flourishes of architecture, doesn’t it? Drop an alien in front of it and the capitals on a Corinthian column and they might come up with the exact same opinion (both being embellishments on a larger, architectural element). I think the difference here is that it’s an after market adjustment, so to speak.
Still that’s a point I’ll give a little thought to today.