The Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall has been home to the sun, the crack and the giant spider, and last week saw the unveiling of the ‘black box’. Polish artist Miroslaw Balka’s How It Is installation is a giant steel structure that encompasses an unlit space. The box is raised off the ground allowing visitors to walk both under and around it. At the far end of the steel box is a ramp that acts as a leaver into the darkness. Entering the void causes sensory deprivation forcing visitors to reach out to locate each other and the walls. One visitor even had to be escorted out after walking into a wall and giving himself a nose-bleed. Balka explains that he wanted to “make a place that gives us opportunities for thinking”. Not without controversy a number of journalists have had their say on the piece. The Observer’s Laura Cummings used connotations of ‘a sea container of migrants gasping for air, [and] a cattle truck of Jews transported to their deaths.’ Rachel Campbell-Johnson of The Times describes the experience as ‘sombre, discombobulating and perhaps a bit sinister. But it is beautiful too.’ We love it, but perhaps take an art safety course before visiting.

How It Is will be on display in the Turbine Hall, Tate Modern until 5 April 2010


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Image Credit:
Official Press Image
Installation view at Tate Modern, Turbine Hall
© Miroslaw Balka
Photocredit: Tate Photography

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