Today was filled with performance: Tate modern has given itself over from underneath upwards with The Tanks opening and Tino Sehgal’s work in the Turbine Hall.
When I arrived a group of people in ordinary clothes were moving around together loosely before dispersing hapazardly into the hall.
I then went into the tanks and saw the reflections of a glass building move silently across a grid of black square dining tables in Suzanne Lacey’s piece. In Sung Hwan Kim’s work me and a friend sat, listened though headphones, weaved past half cut screens and admired the slightly seedy tiled green tissue paper covering parts of a very unusual installation.
After a chat in the member’s cafe on the fifth floor I decended again to see a final free showing of the Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker performance followed by a book signing. Worth the wait. It was entrancing, subersive and concise. As I left a saw the end of a song sung by Seghals’ performers. The lights of the hall went out with their words, then they ran off again up the ramp to be replaced by another group filling the space with brief sprints.
Over to Ceri hand Gallery and we have a very different take of performance. Mel Brimfield’s work is no less artful in her portrayal of artists Van Gogh, Lee Krasner and Pollock. Particularly liked Clement Greenberg – Lee Krasner = Jackson Pollock: it was a well written, brilliantly sarcastic fictional monologue of Krasner portraying her more famous husband as a panting dog.
What will I take away from the experience? use of gesture and rhythm in Keersmaeker’s choreography. It really keeps you locked in.
