Colombian Artist Displays Cracked Floor at Tate Modern

Doris Salcedo is a Colombian artist best known for her sculptures. However, her latest piece might best be described as an anti-sculpture. She has engineered a 500-foot crack in the floor of the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern in London. It starts as a hairline fracture and grows and splits as it traverses the floor, and wire mesh is embedded in the gap. Calling it “Shibboleth,” she claims it’s about the experience of illegal aliens. Might it not be something else, or maybe just crap?

Ms. Salcedo told the media, “It represents borders, the experience of immigrants, the experience of segregation, the experience of racial hatred. It is the experience of a Third World person coming into the heart of Europe.” She added, “"I like to make art that is there only for people that are willing to see it. It’s not a piece that exposes itself.” Well, yeah, it’s a crack in the floor.

The crack, of course, has caused some to worry that she’s wrecked the Turbine Hall. Tate director Nicholas Serota said that isn’t so. It is reparable, according to Mr. Serota, but, “There is a crack, there is a line, and eventually there will be a scar and that scar will remain. It will remain as a memory of the work and also as a memorial to the issues Doris touches on.”

Her title, “Shibboleth,” is a reference to a story in the Book of Judges (Chapter 12 for those who didn’t go to Sunday School regularly), in which the Ephramites were fleeing the inhabitants of Gilead. The refugees were uncovered by making them say the word “shibboleth,” which apparently Ephramites couldn’t properly pronounce. Thus, they were uncovered and put to the sword. If this sounds silly, remember that people in Northern Ireland were often beaten, kidnapped or shot based on how they pronounced the letter “h.” Apparently, the crack illustrates the divisions among people as demonstrated by the shibboleth story, something that makes one part of one group and not another.

However, the artist is wrong about what her work means. The crack represents freedom, which began as a small thing in the ancient world and has spread throughout time, widening and breaking down the concrete barriers as well as the insubstantial ones that separate people. The title is ironic rather than straightforward and mundane. When the Tate patches the crack, it will represent the coming dark age of unreason and the race memory of liberty. Sod it, Shirana Shahbazi has an exhibition at the Barbican.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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