The Dark Experiences

Experiences of the dark
Events in and around How It Is

Monday 1 February – Monday 15 March 2010

We often fear and relish the dark in equal measures for all the unknown it can conceal. As children, we are introduced to darkness with fairy tales, and we enjoy them because they allow us to experience the thrill of the unknown and the shadows without any real exposure to danger. We associate the absence of light both with sleep and more sinister connotations.

The dark, by limiting visual clues that we usually rely on in order to make sense of the world, leaves us open to all possibilities, from the fantastic to the terrifying. How It Is invites us to embrace these potential experiences by plunging into darkness in the company of other visitors. Strangers and friends, emptiness and obstacles, time and space blur into new categories.

Experiences of the Dark is a series of short talks, performances and workshops taking place in and around Miroslaw Balka's How It Is in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern. They outline and generate different experiences of the dark that aim to expand our understanding and our appreciation of it.

The Unilever Series: Miroslaw Balka

Miroslaw Balka’s box of darkness is disturbing in its historical echoes but beautiful as well. The Times
Miroslaw Balka's black hole at Tate Modern is terrifying, awe-inspiring and throught-provoking. It embraces you with a velvet chill. The Guardian

The latest commission in The Unilever Series How It Is by Polish artist Miroslaw Balka is a giant grey steel structure with a vast dark chamber, which in construction reflects the surrounding architecture - almost as if the interior space of the Turbine Hall has been turned inside out. Hovering somewhere between sculpture and architecture, on 2 metre stilts, it stands 13 metres high and 30 metres long. Visitors can walk underneath it, listening to the echoing sound of footsteps on steel, or enter via a ramp into a pitch black interior, creating a sense of unease.

Underlying this chamber is a number of allusions to recent Polish history – the ramp at the entrance to the Ghetto in Warsaw, or the trucks which took Jews away to the camps of Treblinka or Auschwitz, for example. By entering the dark space, visitors place considerable trust in the organisation, something that could also be seen in relation to the recent risks often taken by immigrants travelling. Balka intends to provide an experience for visitors which is both personal and collective, creating a range of sensory and emotional experiences through sound, contrasting light and shade, individual experience and awareness of others, perhaps provoking feelings of apprehension, excitement or intrigue.

Time Line

Material Gestures Exhibition Images 2009

Material Gestures at The Tate Modern

Material Gestures is the exhibition space at the Tate Modern. It located on the level 3 of the Tate. This west features post-war European and American painting and sculpture. The space was made up of 10 rooms.

Room 1 Francis Bacon and Anish Kapoor

Room 2 Material Gestures

Room 3 Viennese Actionism

Room 4 Expressionism

Room 5 Distinguished Voices

Room 6 Gerhard Richter

Room 7 Victor Pasmore

Room 8 Clude Monet and abstract Expressionism

Room 9 Marlene Dumas

Room 10 Paul McCarthy

Andy Goldworthy Images

Andy Goldworthy's Spire

We went for a six-mile walk today through my beautiful cloudy city down to see my favorite artist Andy Goldsworthy’s Spire and then followed the Ecology Trail through the Presidio past folks who smiled greetings, dogs that panted for attention, and children who ran shouting by.

Walking through the park it seems unbelievable that it was built by the US Army, transforming acres of sand dunes into forest as a subtle show of military power. Although the hundred-year old non-native eucalyptus and Monterey cypress were planted in regimented rows, the park reminds me less of the army and more of the story of the Prophet, peace and blessings upon him, holding stones in his hand which were revealed to be singing the praises of God.

All of creation resounds with praise for Him, had we but ears to hear or eyes to see. One of the reasons I like Goldsworthy is because he has the gift of sight. His art is usually made from found, natural objects and is often ephemeral, with decay built into its life cycle – as it is built into ours.

Seeing the Spire standing tall amongst the field of seedlings that will one day obscure it, or watching the extraordinary documentary about Goldsworthy called Rivers & Tides [excerpt], I am reminded of how little I really see of the natural world around me, or the signs (ayats) embedded within them.

As I walk through the Presidio, my steps and breathing slow, I hear the eucalyptus trunk creak in the wind, and see everything from the grasstips to the tree tops bow in humility and grace. How can I become a part of this homage?

Looking up, the trees heave in the wind above as if breathing, reflecting the rise and fall of my chest, and the expansion and contraction of the sea in the distance.

We are all connected, had I but eyes to see, and tongue to praise.

Andy Goldworthy

Andy Goldsworthy (born 26 July 1956) is a British sculptor, photographer and environmentalist living in Scotland who produces site-specific sculpture and land art situated in natural and urban settings. His art involves the use of natural and found objects, to create both temporary and permanent sculptures which draw out the character of their environment.

The son of F. Allin Goldsworthy (1929–2001), former professor of applied mathematics at the University of Leeds, Andy Goldsworthy was born on 26 July 1956 in Cheshire[1] and grew up on the Harrogate side of Leeds, West Yorkshire, in a house edging the green belt. From the age of 13 he worked on farms as a labourer. He has likened the repetitive quality of farm tasks to the routine of making sculpture: "A lot of my work is like picking potatoes; you have to get into the rhythm of it."[2]

He studied fine art at Bradford College of Art (1974–1975) and at Preston Polytechnic (1975–1978)[1] (now the University of Central Lancashire) in Preston, Lancashire, receiving his Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree from the latter.[3]

A view of the trees and landscape surrounding the cairn.

After leaving college, Goldsworthy lived in Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cumbria. In 1985 he moved to Langholm in Dumfries and Galloway, Dumfriesshire, Scotland, and a year later to Penpont. It has been said that his gradual drift northwards was "due to a way of life over which he did not have complete control", but that contributing factors were opportunities and desires to work in these areas and "reasons of economy".[4]

In 1993 he was conferred an honorary degree by the University of Bradford. He is currently an A.D. White Professor-At-Large at Cornell University.[5]

He is the subject of a 2001 documentary feature film Rivers and Tides, directed by Thomas Riedelsheimer.[6]

Land Art Images

Land Art

Land art, Earthworks, or Earth art is an art movement which emerged in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s, in which landscape and the work of art are inextricably linked. Sculptures are not placed in the landscape; rather the landscape is the very means of their creation. The works frequently exist in the open, located well away from civilization, left to change and erode under natural conditions. Many of the first works, created in the deserts of Nevada, New Mexico, Utah or Arizona were ephemeral in nature and now only exist as video recordings or photographic documents.

Land Art is a form of art which involves using physical landscapes to create art, forcing people to view the art in context, and taking the provenance of art out of the museum and into the outside world. People have been creating works of art with landscapes for centuries, but the modern Land Art movement really got going in the 1960s, when American artists began creating Land Art on a large scale. Today, works of modern Land Art can be seen all over the world, sometimes right alongside much older pieces of Land Art created by people who lived thousands of years ago