Tate Modern unveils underground space – the Tanks – devoted to live art
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I found some shots I took of the tape placed thoughout the AVA (Architecture and Visual Arts) building of UEL. I could only find photos of the blue tape but there were various colours with different paths.
Six artists worked in Dilston Grove sequentially in a series of week-long mini-residencies. At the end of each week the artists’ sculptural engagement with the space culminated in a performance or installation that was open to the public. Each artist chose the artist to succeed him or her and each left behind their materials and structures for the following artist to inherit and build upon. Picking up where the previous artist left off, each responded to, recycled and added to what they found, gradually or radically transforming the space. The materials they used became the binding force, the DNA, creating threads as well as layers, linking the artists who knowingly inhabited each other’s past and future.
This is a great example of an artist-led space; site-specific collaborative work; temporary and negotiated space; as well as documentation as art. They also created a blog and here are photographs taken throughout the project by Hydar Dewachi that were exhibited in the space at the end of the 6 weeks.
Instead of waiting to be told they’re the next big thing, artists are increasingly taking matters into their own hands by setting up DIY galleries and project spaces, often in unusual settings. Here’s how to do the same…
I think it is particularly interesting that the dancers are improvising and that this involves both action and stillness. It is the use of pinhole cameras in combination with the dance that is most interesting to me. The relationship created between the performers’ movement/stillness, the space they occupy and the capturing of this. Rather than freezing action and documenting the performance, as photography is inherently used to do, here the photographs are taken with a long-exposure and so will capture traces of movement and moments of stillness as well as a sense of the space. It is utilised less as a medium of documentation and is more like an extension of the artistic piece and the process involved. I find both elements of this work, to an extent, to be reactionary rather than predetermined and highlight process and chance.
I think we should consider the incorporation of similar photographic techniques to our interactions within the gallery space. This would act as a further method to subvert the white cube, using it as a space for art creation alongside that of exhibition.
…and what if we were weightless, free to walk along walls and not have to share and negotiate the ground that we’re gravitationally bound to?
Space Within 