Showing posts with label Turbine Hall. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Turbine Hall. Show all posts

Saturday, 29 May 2010

Hamish Fulton's 'Slowalk (for Ai Weiwei)', Turbine Hall, Tate Modern 30 April 2011 - a participant's perspective



Hamish Fulton, 'Slowalk (for Ai Weiwei)', photo copyright Tate, 2011


I didn't think I'd be writing a third review in connection with Ai Weiwei, but events have overtaken me, and more relevantly, him. In response to Ai Weiwei's disappearance and presumed detention by the Chinese authorities, Tate Modern asked artist Hamish Fulton to create a work of art based on the walk (his only medium), to coincide with the last weekend of Ai's installation Sunflower Seeds in the Turbine Hall. Fulton asked members of the public to volunteer to realise the work: I was one of around a hundred who participated.

The point of the walk was to remember Ai and draw attention to his plight; to create a work that would fill the enormous space of the Turbine Hall not already occupied by Ai's installation; and to offer a private experience of a journey to each of the participants. As far as I could tell these were the prime intentions of Fulton, or at least of the Tate: when I asked Fulton afterwards whether we had collectively realised his intentions as he expected, he said that he 'didn't deal in expectations'. Still, I felt that the way the event was structured would inevitably create a certain kind of form within the hall, through time, and also certain range of experiences for the participants.

The directions from Tate asked us to arrive early so that we could meet with Fulton and be briefed. We had been instructed to wear dark clothes, so that the piece would 'look good': to the same end, we were to start the walk precisely at 12 noon - 'not at one minute past twelve or one minute before, but all of us at exactly the same time,' said Fulton, who would be doing the walk with us. We were asked to choose starting points for the walk, so that we were evenly distributed, a line of us at each end of the hall, and a line along each of the two sides, forming a large rectangle of dark-clad humanity, like rows of little sunflower seeds if seen from the balconies above. At noon each of us would begin walking, very slowly, towards the opposite side of the hall, never stopping, never going backwards, arriving at the other side thirty minutes later. Then we were to turn around and reverse our journey, arriving back where we started an hour later. Two more crossings were to take us to two o'clock, whereupon we were all to stop at exactly the same moment. A further complication was that we were somehow to avoid colliding with people moving in the opposite direction, or at right angles to ourselves. Finally, the whole was to be performed in complete silence. No phones (except to use as modern pocket watches to check the time occasionally). No talking, to each other, or to members of the public who might walk among us or ask questions. Just looking ahead, remaining silent, and moving... slowly... slowly...

Although it has taken a paragraph to explain the rules, they seemed pretty simple... except when it came to executing them. Fulton said that we were not trained dancers (oops, he hadn't reckoned on me being there!) and that he really didn't know what would happen. People were trying to get their heads round the not-colliding-with-others idea and I suggested that it was like a giant traffic crossing, but without any signals. 'Exactly,' said Fulton. I had been thinking of something I'd seen on television some years ago - an intersection of two wide streets in Saigon, crammed with hundreds of people on tiny motorbikes passing through each other without anyone stopping, interlacing like a motorised tapestry with clockwork perfection, despite no signals, lights or traffic wardens of any kind. (OK, I have to fess up that my TV memory was of Jeremy Clarkson's World, not the sort of place one would expect a profound moment - but there he was, saying 'There are very few cars here now, but it's changing. Imagine what this scene would look like if every motor scooter was replaced by a Mercedes.') And that memory of people effortlessly passing each other was exactly what we were like during the piece, scattered around like barely moving terra cotta warriors in some sort of hyper-slow rush hour. You could see people coming, but the impending 'crash' was in such slow motion that it was ridiculously easy to take subtle evasive action. A lesson for drivers everywhere...

One of the most important aspects of the piece for the participants, however, was the time-distance structure imposed by Fulton. It would be simple enough to walk very slowly, back and forth four times, but to do each section in exactly half an hour? How fast (or slowly) would you actually have to move? Being of a practical/scientific bent (and a trained dancer) I did something Fulton probably hadn't anticipated - I measured the width of the Turbine Hall in terms of the length of my own feet. Fifty-six lengths, as it happens. Hmm, half an hour is 30 minutes times 60 seconds per minute, or 1800 seconds. Divide that by 56 foot lengths and I had approximately 32 seconds to travel each foot length. I devised a way of counting cycles of thirty-two in four sections: eight slow counts to lift a foot, eight slow counts to place it heel to toe in front of the other foot, eight slow counts to transfer my weight from the back foot to the front foot, and eight slow counts to place the back foot next to the foot now in front. This worked to establish a pace but I had trouble counting how many complete cycles of thirty-two I had done - I would get distracted by avoiding a collision, or watching people watching us, or my own breathing, and always lost count around sixteen. Still, all this counting meant that I was completely focused - on the counting, on my feet, on looking where I was going, and on my breathing (and generally trying not to slouch, fall over, etc.) In a word, all my conscious mind chatter was completely turned off. It was a meditation, which is what I'd hoped it would be, and why I volunteered to participate. It was a very good meditation, for me. For the entire second hour I was lightheaded, probably because I was breathing properly for the first time in days. And I was entirely focused in the present moment. No planning what I was going to do, no reliving some episode from the past week, or last year. No commentary on what I was seeing, no judgment. Just putting one foot in front of the other, counting, and breathing.

Other people had different approaches to the walk. The man opposite me had a very easygoing gentle rock from one foot to the other, each time taking an infinitesimal step forward (about a quarter of an inch), listening the whole time to music on headphones - not a purely silent meditation, but I have done plenty of meditations in my time to music. There was a woman traveling the length of the hall who was making a soft shuffling noise, dragging her sandaled feet over the floor. A woman near me was picking up her feet quite high in a sort of cycling motion. She got ahead of herself during the second crossing and a sort of gentle panic registered in her movements three quarters of the way across, with fifteen minutes to go. She spent the last five minutes of the half hour cycling in place with her face to the wall. Another woman told me she had been carrying on quite happily until she came within sight of Hamish Fulton, whereupon she began to worry that she wasn't 'doing it right', saying, 'It was like having Teacher watching.' Some people walked carrying photos of Ai Weiwei. One person made the crossings in a wheelchair, propelling her wheels in tiny arc segments. One person was even spotted reading a book (really! I thought, lapsing briefly into judgment. But what book? It could have been an appropriate one, by Thich Naht Hahn, for example...) Most people took slow, thoughtful, tiny steps, less than an inch long. The need to go anywhere, to rush, to get somewhere, was removed. It wasn't about the arrival, it was about the journey.

And it was very, very quiet, even when people passed amongst us, avoiding us like speeded up anxious pinballs, or joined us for a while, but without the evenness bestowed by knowing that there was a full half hour allowed to get to the other side, and no stopping, just even motion - it was easy to spot the 'joiners'. And the crowd of spectators was completely silent, even approaching two o'clock when every available space was filled at either end of the hall, on the balconies, or in the breakout areas with a window view overlooking the hall from the higher floors, echoing the rows we formed as we resumed our positions at the side of the hall, except for a handful of the superslow, last of all the Chinese man in the black robe holding a photocopied portrait of Ai before him like an icon. And then the silence shattered at the end as we began, with a blow to a gong that echoed powerfully round the immense volume of the hall, the volume barely filled by the sunflower seeds or us, scattered seeds realigned in rows, my spirit shattered out of wherever it was back into my body as I stood, back to the wall.

Then a very long, still silence, totally unexpected but very contagious. It felt long as time had slowed down on the walk, for me at least, but I reckon it was at least twenty seconds, maybe thirty (it has of course been edited down on the Tate video). And then, spontaneous applause, first from us, and then from the watching public, filling the Turbine Hall with little bursting seeds of sound.


Ai Weiwei, 'Sunflower Seeds', Tate Modern: a second look



Photo: Margaret Sharrow, 2011

Six months on, the hundred thousand sit, wait patiently. Only the ones on top are seen, and a few at the edges are all that can be examined in any detail. The rest are invisible, but known, present.

I have already reviewed this installation close to its opening, and now, having revisited it, I continue my tradition of reviewing exhibitions near their closing dates.

The seeds extend over a huge area, like a grey carpet when seen from a distance. It is possible to walk along one side, for the length of the installation. This is the compromise. After the first few euphoric days of the installation when the public walked over the seeds and could pick them up, as Ai intended, the gallery, in consultation with Ai, decided to keep the public off the installation because of the lead dust rising up. Of course the workers making the seeds, although some wore face masks, must have been exposed to far more dust.

On this visit, having more time, I was able to learn more about these workers. Adjacent to the installation are a video documentary with seating area, and a room of touch screens where you can post a video question or answer to Ai Weiwei, in either English or Chinese.


Photo of Tate documentary, Margaret Sharrow, 2011

The documentary shows the stages of production of the sunflower seeds, in the Chinese town of Jingdezhen, which has for seventeen hundred year been producing porcelain for Chinese emperors. First the kaolin is mined: men are shown pushing rail carts filled with huge chunks of the stuff out of the earth by hand, as if Welsh coal miners of the nineteenth century. Then the rocks are ground by log spikes powered by a waterwheel, again reminiscent of nineteenth century Wales. After a mechanical mixing process, the porcelain is poured into moulds that produce around two dozen seeds at once, growing like berries off a central stalk. Removed from their stalks, fired in the glorious sunset light of a large kiln, and sorted, they are ready for the ladies who paint the stripes, either in factories with groups of women at a number of tables, or production at home, with families working for short time periods in between childcare and cooking. A bit of tumbling, to give a more natural finish, then the seeds are packed in enormous sacks ready for shipping to the gallery, where they are spread around on the floor by facemasked assistants with rakes, as if tending a Japanese wabi sabi style garden. Throughout Ai is shown overseeing, photo documenting, chatting, interacting, and generally hanging around. He says that the Chinese workers, though delighted to have the work, really didn't understand what the seeds were for, and couldn't conceive of them as forming an art installation. Does it matter if the workers making the piece don't understand what it is for? Does it matter if people looking at the installation don't understand it? Does it matter if they understand it, but don't like it? Ai accepts the incomprehension of the porcelain workers, who, unlike Tate visitors, are not living in a local culture with a place for contemporary art. He says in the documentary, 'I always think art is a tool to set up new questions. To create a basic structure which can be open to possibilities is the most interesting part of my work. I want people who don't understand art to understand what I'm doing.' Here he trails off into a wordless reverie. Most of us wandering Tate Modern won't have memories of Mao represented as the sun to whom all the people, seen as sunflowers, turn for sustenance, or even of sharing unshelled sunflower seeds as a snack. But most of the visitors to Tate Modern would have the experience of crossing the Millennium Bridge, swept along in a never ending current of people, or of cramming themselves into the last possible space on a full Tube, ducking head to avoid decapitation by the slam of impersonal curved doors. One of many, many, many... yet each individual. Handcrafted, you might even say. I was distressed to hear on the radio this morning (4 April 2011) that Ai has again run into difficulties with the Chinese authorities, this time being stopped as he attempted to fly to Hong Kong. He may be unable to respond to tweets and video postings for a while.


Ai Weiwei, 'Sunflower Seeds', Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London, 12 October 2010 – 2 May 2011

More photographs of the exhibition and its interpretation on my Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Margaret-Sharrow/48770277575

You can view the documentary at the Tate website, http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/unileverseries2010/room3.shtm


Ai Weiwei answers the public’s questions, and asks some of his own http://aiweiwei.tate.org.uk/


Ai Weiwei news link: PBS Newshour, 4 April 2011 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFDtMVlJCHI

Guardian video interview with Ai Weiwei, 'Life is never guaranteed to be safe', 18 March 2010 http://gu.com/p/2fgav

Ai Weiwei: Sunflower Seeds: a field of could-be sunflowers... but not a beach







Photo: Ai Weiwei's 'Sunflower Seeds', Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London. Image copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2010.




I must admit I was quite excited at the prospect of the next Turbine Hall installation at Tate Modern, having enjoyed Mirosław Balka earlier in the year. And there was certainly quite a buildup: I'd read the article about Ai in Tate Etc, and heard the folk on Radio 4's Front Row enthusing about how much it was like a beach, how people were walking on it, sitting and lying down and making sandcastles out of the 100,000,000 ceramic sunflower seeds.

So imagine my disappointment to discover, first of all, that by the fourth day of the exhibition, access to the work was barred (i.e. you couldn't walk on it as Ai intended), and second, that it didn't fill nearly as much of the Turbine Hall as I'd imagined. This second disillusionment was entirely a product of my own fevered imagination, being a hazard of getting much of my art news from the radio: I had formed an image in my mind of a Turbine Hall packed nearly to the rafters with seeds, that were slightly larger than life size and made of unpainted grey porcelain. This image persisted despite the fact that I had watched Newsnight with Ai interviewed standing on his work, right there in the public library on iPlayer, so plenty of witnesses that I did not see Ai brushing his head against the ceiling. In fact one hundred million precisely lifesized porcelain sunflower seeds barely covers the floor to a depth of four inches (10 cm). I suppose a 30-plus metre depth of sunflower seeds would constitute a genuine health and safety hazard (tabloid headlines spring to mind: 'man, 46, drowns in art'), but porcelain dust? Surely visitors' time on the piece could be limited, or misters employed at designated times to settle the dust, or we could all be forced to read copious safety warnings before launching ourselves into the unknown. I appreciate that Tate must protect itself from possible lawsuits, but somehow the same gallery allowed us to experience Cildo Meireles' powerful installation that involved potential asphyxiation from impenetrable clouds of talcum powder in a confined space.

All this discussion of access to the work is bound to overshadow the meaning of the work, which had shown its potential to generate joy, playfulness and happy seaside memories in a culture that does not have the same associations with the sunflower seed as the Chinese (even if we snack on sunflower seeds, most of us buy them shelled). These pieces are meticulously crafted. A hundred million, all superficially the same yet subtly detailed in minor variations - they are extremely accurate replicas, stripey and unglazed, an amiable attendant having let me hold a few in my hand. Each one inevitably representing - a person, so less than one tenth the population of China, two thirds would represent the population of Britain with the leftover part accounting for, I don't know, annual tourists to Britain. Or maybe just annual tourists to London, I'm not sure. Each one quiet and humble. In fact many were obviously disappointed by the sheer ordinariness of it all. 'Is that it?' one woman cried. She might have been happier with ten thousand sunflowers in bloom, bright faces replicating Olafur Eliasson's The Weather Project, shown in the Turbine Hall in 2003-2004). Of course the seeds are the potential for a thousand times more sunflowers. And they are also like the infamous butter mountains and wine lakes of the European Union's notorious Common Agricultural Policy, a superabundance of food in a world where so many do not have enough to eat.

Given Ai's track record as an artist who is largely an activist (in some lights, perhaps an activist who is largely an artist), readings similar to this last may lie closer to the artist's intention. Millions dressed identically in drab Mao suits, five year plans to produce mountains of food to feed the millions, to produce grey metal to launch China's industries in the collective fervour of the past. Millions going to work in suits in the booming present, or perhaps millions of political prisoners over the decades, if prisoners wear grey? Millions of mobile phones, iPods, and all the other silver consumer goods. Millions of tons of rubbish, that will be left by the empty shells of seeds, and of consumer goods discarded. And while the numbers trapped by recent earthquakes are far less, that grey horde is never far from Ai's mind.

Still, all these possible readings have come to me after the event. When I was there, I just wanted to play on a beach. And so I sat forlornly behind the barrier tape like a kid at the pier on a rainy day, glumly tossing my sample seeds back into the multitude.

Unilever Series: Ai Weiwei's Sunflower Seeds continues at the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, London, until 2 May 2011 (according to the Tate link below; the bimonthly Tate magazine says 25 April 2011). Free.

Check with the Tate page for latest updates on the access situation

I wrote this review, then I read the others below, which are worth a look for further contextualisation, to learn that over a thousand people were employed in a Chinese pottery-making town to create the seeds by hand, and that Ai also sees the work as being like the mass of small contributions on Twitter:

Adrian Serle


Charlotte Higgins

23 October 2010


Monday, 12 April 2010

To infinity and beyond: Miroslaw Balka 'This is How It Is'


Mirosław Bałka, 'This is How It Is', photograph copyright Margaret Sharrow 2010


Mirosław Bałka

This is How It Is

The Unilever Series

Turbine Hall, Tate Modern

Until 5 April 2010


A vast, black, metal chamber. A staircase to the viewing platform lets you see it at eye level, as it were. Its eye level. 


Raised up on stilts above the Turbine Hall's sloping floor, you can walk under it, between its legs, smacking its underbelly with an umbrella, as one man did, with a cold unbell-like ring. 


Go round the back end, where it is open, and proceed up the ramp into its black inside. 


Once the walls envelop your peripheral vision, it is darker than most photographic darkrooms. No chink of light seeps in, unless reflected off a person ahead, cautiously inching their way into the void. You follow.


It appears to be about darkness; but it is also about light. When you turn around, or anxiously look back (which feels like cheating, like being Lot's wife), you are rewarded with the diffuse brilliance of the outside world: persons in the box are dark shadows, but beyond, a wall of light, even at night. 


On a small plinth lost alongside the sheer mass of this piece is a tattered catalogue detailing many of Bałka's influences. The first one that popped out at me was Dante's Inferno, an illustration of the nine-leveled pit of hell with Dante's progression of increasingly intense sins. 


I had thought it would be an interesting counterpoint to Cildo Meireles' final installation at Tate Modern last year: two evocations of what the eighteenth-century critic would have called the sublime. Both involved a walk into the unknown; both hinted at a specific human cruelty - Bałka's the cattlecarts of the Holocaust, Meireles' the oppression of pollution - or perhaps the gas chambers. Ultimately Miereles' piece was the more terrifying in my experience, but when I was there a group of people were visible sitting on the floor in a circle, deep inside the piece. So my steps into the void had a kind of perspective, a knowledge of how far I could go. But past them? It was hard not to believe that the next step would not plunge me over a precipice, over an unseen edge. My brain helpfully suggested, 'Health and safety. The Tate couldn't let visitors just step into nothing, and fall. You've seen the outside of the box: there is no hole, no edge. It is a container; you are contained.' 


My primitive brain, the undomesticated one with no knowledge of laws, seat belts or the safety of roller coasters, remained utterly unconvinced. 


Link to Bałka on Tate Modern website