Master of ceremonies Philippe Parreno brings the Turbine Hall to life
When Herzog and de Meuron’s highly anticipated Switch House extension opened at the Tate Modern in June this year, the cavernous Turbine Hall that was once a ‘dead end’ within the museum became its heart; a space that leads visitors across from the original riverside building to the new galleries.
It was a change of circulation that was closely observed by the Hall’s latest resident, French artist Philippe Parreno, whose installation Anywhen opens today as the second in a new series of annual site-specific Turbine Hall commissions sponsored by Hyundai.
A master of the immersive, Parreno is the perfect candidate to take on the halls’ cavernous space – he was famously the first artist to take on all 22,000 sq m at the Palais de Tokyo in 2013 and just last year he filled New York’s gargantuan Park Avenue Armory with his show, 'H {N)Y P N(Y} OSIS’.
‘There has never been a project that has used the Turbine Hall in this way,’ says Tate assistant curator Vassilis Oikonomopoulos of Parreno’s typically immersive installation, ‘not topologically, not technically or even architecturally.’
Keen to extract elements of the Hall and integrate them into his ‘living’ exhibition, Parreno became the first ever artist with a Turbine commission to go and talk to the architects, visiting Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron at their offices in Basel in order to better understand the design of the space.
The result is an exhibition that sees Parreno ‘playing’ the Hall like an instrument, so that visitors approaching from all entrances can't help but be drawn into the spectacle. As music and sound designed by Nicolas Becker with Cengiz Hartlap blares out, the Turbine’s light boxes flash in time, a temporary cinema space gracefully drops down from the ceiling and a shoal of inflatable fish float serenely past. A ghost-like white marquee – a familiar accoutrement from the Parreno toolbox – is installed on the Turbine Hall’s Level 1 bridge alongside a moving spotlight (made in collaboration with Liam Gillick) that snakes through the hall on a rail casting beautiful shadows as it goes. Elsewhere, the outside is brought inside in the form of daylight from the Hall’s towering windows as well as live sounds that have been recorded on microphones placed in and around the building.
The suspended cinema space, that consists of one vast screen, a grid of speakers and a series of vertical and horizontal acoustic panels engineered by Kvadrat, glides up and down in various configurations, occasionally stopping to show one of two films including a new hypnotic work that features underwater footage of a brilliant bioluminescent cuttlefish as well as a performance by ventriloquist Nina Conti.
Here, beneath the suspended cinema, visitors are encouraged to stop and sit on the specially-installed carpet; to take a moment to get lost in the experience, creating what the artist calls a ‘temporary community’. ‘The fact that it’s a free exhibition changes the perspective,’ says Oikonomopoulos. ‘The opportunities are much bigger for creating a more diverse community. It won’t just be your typical museum visitors here; unexpected types of people will come in that have no idea about Philippe or his work.’
Another defining feature of Anywhen is that, unlike previous Parreno exhibitions, there will be no loop of planned sequences. Instead its form will be more organic, constantly changing throughout the day and even over the course of its six-month lifespan so that every visitor has a new experience. This is, in part, due to a mysterious bioreactor that is installed at the back of the hall.
Conceived and engineered by scientists Jean-Baptiste Boulé and Nicolas Desprat, the bioreactor was first introduced by Parreno as part of ‘IF THIS THEN ELSE’, an exhibition held earlier this year at the Gladstone Gallery. Connected to sensors on the roof and within the hall, the laboratory set-up, which can be viewed through a glass screen, is fed information about changes in light and humidity. In response to the data, the microorganisms within the bioreactor create patterns that will then trigger sequences of movement within the space.
As a whole, the effect is beguiling; like being inside a disorientating collage made up of layers of natural and artificial sound and light that eradicate any sense of perspective or scale. ‘We had no idea how poetic it would be and how many surprises we would have,’ says Oikonomopoulos of the six-week installation process. ‘When there are so many elements and they finally come together the combination of them often left us speechless.’
INFORMATION
'Hyundai Commission: Philippe Parreno', supported by Kvadrat, is on view until 2 April 2017. For more information, visit the Tate Modern's website.
ADDRESS
Tate Modern
Bankside
London, SE1 9TG
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox
-
How to wear Byredo’s green liquid lipstick, according to the Wallpaper* beauty editor
Byredo’s green liquid lipstick, part of the new Mineralscapes collection, is easier to wear than it sounds says Wallpaper’s beauty editor Hannah Tindle
By Hannah Tindle Published
-
Stephanie D’heygere swaps fashion for design with surreal, pop architecture-inspired Antwerp office
Stephanie D’heygere of Paris accessories label D’heygere brings her playful eye to ‘Officeland’, a co-working space in Antwerp filled with supersized objects in ode to Claes Oldenburg and American pop architecture
By Belle Hutton Published
-
Shadowbox is a Montana retreat that epitomises rest, reflection and recovery
Shadowbox is a Montana retreat designed by Arizona based by The Ranch Mine as a contextual escape for unique experiences
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Step into Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron's dreamy photographs in London
'Portraits to Dream In' is currently on show at London's National Portrait Gallery
By Katie Tobin Published
-
Gerhard Richter unveils new sculpture at Serpentine South
Gerhard Richter revisits themes of pattern and repetition in ‘Strip-Tower’ at London’s Serpentine South
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Meet the Turner Prize 2024 shortlisted artists
The Turner Prize 2024 shortlisted artists are Pio Abad, Claudette Johnson, Jasleen Kaur and Delaine Le Bas
By Hannah Silver Published
-
London gallery Incubator’s six emerging artists to see in spring 2024
Incubator's spring programme features six artists in consecutive two-week solo shows at the London, Chiltern Street gallery
By Mary Cleary Published
-
Kembra Pfahler revisits ‘The Manual of Action’ for CIRCA
Artist Kembra Pfahler will lead a series of classes in person and online, with a short film streamed from Piccadilly Circus in London, as well as in Berlin, Milan and Seoul, over three months until 30 June 2024
By Zoe Whitfield Published
-
Yinka Shonibare considers the tangled relationship between Africa and Europe at Serpentine South
Yinka Shonibare‘s ‘Suspended States’ at Serpentine South, London, considers history, refuge and humanitarian support (until 1 September 2024)
By Tianna Williams Published
-
Gavin Turk subverts still-life painting and says: ‘We are what we throw away’
Gavin Turk considers wasteful consumer culture in ‘The Conspiracy of Blindness’ at Ben Brown Fine Arts, London
By Rowland Bagnall Published
-
Dorothy Hepworth and Patricia Preece: Bloomsbury’s untold story
‘Dorothy Hepworth and Patricia Preece: An Untold Story’ is a new exhibition at Charleston in Lewes, UK, that charts the duo's creative legacy
By Katie Tobin Published