- Venue
- Tate Modern
- Location
I always feel it is somehow churlish to enter Tate Modern by any other way than the big slope. I hope to recreate the initial thrill of first encountering the space of the Turbine Hall. Now the floor traces the ghostly scar of Doris Salcedo’s Shibboleth, and houses other invisible memories of giant spiders and structures. Artists should always have an idea for the Turbine Hall working away in their mind – just in case.
I love the Tanks space – the industrial innards, the smell of oil, the leftover traces of functionality. Now that my children are older I can visit galleries with more freedom. I’ve been to places such as this with children and school groups, so it feels like a liberation to be able to give my full attention to my own thoughts about the art.
I happened to drop by the Tanks during a visit of schoolboys about 11 years old. Wherever I went, they were. Wherever I watched a screen, they stood in front, making rude shadow puppets. In the dark spaces, there they were, giggling. The only option was to accept them as part of the experience and try to see the work through their eyes.
Light Music plays in a hazy room, with facing projectors and screens arranged so that people can become part of the piece. Boys of 11 find things funny, and are always on the lookout for bravado and mockery. This is a piece of art which can take whatever irreverence 11 year olds can throw at it – it is about light and atmosphere, and allowing yourself to join in. The low-tech cinematic feel has a sense of optical illusion about it, as if you can’t quite tell where the logical source of light is.
Sometimes there is a lot going on in Lis Rhodes’ work – at the ICA earlier this year they showed multiple pieces all together, somehow diluting the overall effect of each by overstimulation. Light Music allows the audience to have a multiplicity of experiences – it’s a great idea you can hang a lot of others upon. It’s a piece from 1975 that is becoming more relevant and contemporary as artists explore the mechanics and inner meanings of film media.
I would have liked to have this piece to myself, but that would be churlish.
