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The second commission in The Unilever Series, created for the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, was completed by the Spanish artist Juan Muñoz and opened to the public on 12 June. Muñoz created a new installation that dramatically alters the 155 metres long x 35 metres high (500 x 115 feet) space. The work presents the viewer with a series of intriguing scenarios, which play on perspective and illusion, visibility and invisibility.
Titled Double Bind, the installation is divided into two parts. On the upper, bridge level of the Turbine Hall, the visitor sees, beyond a balcony rail, a patterned floor, through which two elevators rise and descend, locked in perpetual motion. The floor appears to be pierced with a series of large black holes or shafts, some of which are illusions.
Below, the atmosphere darkens. Pools of light fall from the shafts, while the elevators glide into the subterranean gloom. Moving further into the lower space, it becomes apparent that the shafts above are inhabited by a cast of sculpted figures. Their expressions and actions remain unclear, as does our own role in their private drama.
Juan Muñoz is renowned for sculptural works in which he situates the human figure within elaborate or complex architectural settings. These are created using elements such as patterned floors, staircases and balconies. Then, by a highly considered placement of the figures, Muñoz entices the viewer into an engagement with the implied dramas unravelling within. The architectural features, such as the shafts and the balcony in Double Bind, also serve as metaphors, particularly the balcony which, in Muñoz’s art, operates as a form of threshold, between spectator and performer, past and future, and subject and object.
The first commission in The Unilever Series was undertaken by Louise Bourgeois and was displayed in the Turbine Hall for the opening in 2000. Unilever’s support, totaling £1.25 million, will allow Tate Modern to commission a new large-scale work for the Turbine Hall each year until 2004. Art installation sponsored by Unilever in collaboration with Juan Munoz to create two worlds of work by the artist.
The floor space from the mezzanine level was projected to the rear of the turbine hall to create 3 zones.
- zone 1 is the floor surface at mezzanine level
- zone 2 was the space created in the structural depth of the floor in zone 1
- zone 3 was the space below the soffit of zone 3
2001
Tate Modern
5,425 m²
Juan Muñoz
ArtAngel
Juan Muñoz, Aran Chadwick, Daniel Statham, Neil Thomas
Atelier One