Saturday, April 14, 2007

Tate Modern’s Helter Skelter – last slides are on Sunday, before it’s recycled

Back in October, I posted about five giant helter skelters that were installed in the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall in London.

It’s the work of Carsten Höller who believes that there are alternative ways of moving around.

Twelve seconds to drop a full five floors.

I got some snaps at the press preview, but (thankfully) didn’t get the opportunity to actually slide down. If you were wanting a run down them, then you just have until 5.30pm on Sunday 15th. Not long.

Then the slides close and will be dismantled and recycled ... maybe reappearing appearing as baked bean cans in Sainsburys this summer!

If you can’t make it there, the Tate’s webcam (link unlikely to work after Sunday) showing the base of the slides won’t be of much comfort!

Once the slides are out of the way, the next annual installation to fill the massive Turbine Hall won’t be in place until 9 October 2007. Doris Salcedo, a Colombian sculptor, has been commissioned to create the next in the Unilever-sponsored (£500,000) series of artwork. Salcedo specialises in using chairs and tables as metaphors for people, particularly in war situations.

The Evening Standard explains:

“In 2002 Salcedo lowered 280 chairs down the facade of the Palace of Justice in Bogota to pay homage to those killed there in a failed guerrilla coup.

The following year, in Istanbul, she filled a derelict plot with 1,550 wooden chairs - to evoke the masses of faceless migrants who underpin the globalised economy.”

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