Turbine Hall: 3 of the Unilever Series (Essay Sample)

Name Class Professor Course Date Turbine Hall: 3 of the Unilever Series The rationale of this essay is to give an explanation of the success of the Turbine hall in the modern Tate and the visitors' relation with this exhibition space (McIntosh, 153). The essay will focus on the rationale of coming up with the Tate modern and the process of selecting the museum's building's architect and model. Besides, the essay will focus on the gallery and museum architect and how it impacted on the visitors' experience. The essay will analyze an example of an art project realized in the Turbine Hall. Moreover, it will analyze the visitors' response to this site and point the main factors that make Turbine Hall a successful exhibition space. In December 1992, the Board of trustees and Tate authority made a decision to come up with a museum for Tate's increasing collection of international modern. The trustees had to decide where to locate the new gallery and whether it should be a conversion of the existing construction or a new building. The Tate's director brought the idea of housing the new museum located at the Bankside power station. After a visit to the building of all the trustees in July 1993, Tate officially announced taking up of the Bankside Power Station as the selected site in April 1994. An international completion was conducted to select the architect for the conversion. One hundred and forty eight entries were made but only thirteen were first shortlisted followed by final six projects. The trustees were looking for architect not projects. The architect to be selected had to meet the requirements of being flexible in practice and fulfill Tate's expectations while functioning on the renovation of the building. In January Tate made a decision to choose Herzog and de Meuron as the architects of the redesign (Doorly, 94). De Meuron and Herzog accepted every characteristic of the existing building and decided to make good use of its features. De Meuron and Herzog proposed for the extremely large space which was five hundred foot long, seventy foot wide and one hundred and fifteen foot high. The Swiss team left it untouchable hence it was a large space which could serve well as an exhibition space. Tate modern was officially opened in 2000 and in this same year attracted double the expected number of visitors- five point two millions. Tate modern was visited by 5.3 million people during the Uniliver exhibition. It became the most popular modern art museum globally. Tate modern holds this title today with roughly five point three million visitors in 2013. The development of Tate modern had an economical impact on the surrounding local businesses and community. It is estimated that Tate modern brought $50 to $ 70 million to the UK economy. Furthermore, it also economically affected the Bankside states by creating three thousand jobs opportunities. Around half of the jobs created were specific to the southern area. Tate modern has modern escalators, cogs and sprockets. The reason why Uniliver selected the Turbine Hall was because it offered more amazing and immersive experiences. It is both set and cinema. It is a place for illusions. People stated that viewing the building was one the reasons why they visited this hall. The building had professionally constructed and strong images. The lighting effects suggest awareness of contemporary art. For instance, there are human sculptures and images demonstrate an engagement with the contemporary display of illusion within the Turbine Hall. The mothers came to look at the art and show their children how to walk. The Turbine hall displays the art of diverted spaces that would encourage learning, thinking and provoke intense reflection. This induces feeling of excitement. Tate sent a set of questionnaires to over forty artists whose works were meant to be performed in the Tate modern. This took place on the assumption that if artists liked the space, then the public would also respond to it (Doorly, 94). A great number of the artists desired galleries located in urban setting were architectural intervention was minimized. They also favored the conventions of existing buildings over purpose build museums. Uniliver offered a corporate sponsor to Tate modern. A series of artworks were created especially for the sight of Turbine Hall- the Uniliver series. Critiques have argued that the Uniliver series has been subjugated with installations that are described as creating hindrances over more self-reflective art. This critique is bad because Uniliver is an organization that manages change within the cultural sector, which is reason of achievement of new audiences associated with new installation practices, to build and push a dynamic level of experience. The program of the Unilever Series reveals slight engagement with socio-political and institutional critique. The Unilever Series creates a temporary deferral of the daily, within the vessel of the architecture of the authority station. The association connecting the art installation and the monumentalism of the Turbine Hall has been an argument just about the critique of scaling up of art works as related with the increased size of current galleries. Most people were attracted to Turbine hall because it is public place made distinct by institution as opposed to those places within its instant urban context. It is a representation of privileged order of power in the city. The Uniliver series consisted of thirteen works created by various artists including Brune Nauman(2004/05), Ai Weiwei (2010/11) and Tino Sehgal (2011). None of the artists who were requested to produce a piece for the Turbine Hall had a chance to work in such a big space before and most of them had to hire studios to make preparations. All artists who participated in Uniliver exhibitions had different approaches to conceptual, formal and material aspects. For instance Nauman used sound art while Tino Sehgal used performance artwork. Turbine Hall was, in some sense, treated as a public space. These artists believed the hall had some potential powers that lay in it and it was a space of their time. The structure spaces are very modern. This feature attracted more people. The use of the Turbine was successful because it was a very big city and a mega museum. Besides, it also had a very big interest from the press. The weather project was criticized by many Tate visitors and art critics. For instance, James Meyer points out how small he feels in the space of the Turbine hall. He points out that the qualities and meanings of the installations were covered with vast social effects and that Turbine hall was just a gathering space and a space for displaying art. In addition, Meyer believed that Turbine wall caused a transformational of the institutionally critical piece into an occasion. The Ai Weiwei's sunflower seed- Uniliver series was commissioned in 2010.This exhibition was significant in various ways. In the Tate, an artist of Chinese origin showed hundred thousand porcelain sunflower seeds painted and sculpted by regularly female workers in Jingdezhen in china (Harvie, 91). The space of the Turbine hall was filled with the sunflower seeds and created roughly an endless landscape. The large scripture was interpreted in various ways. For example, the artist interpreted it as a work of poverty and mass production in China. It was also interpreted to depict the China Cultural Revolution. The image of the Mao Zedong was seen surrounded by sunflowers as an iconographical metaphor of Chinese citizens supporting him. The curator of the project Juliet Bingham says that this exhibition was a piece that could be read about the individual within the masses and as an art about globalization. Tate formally asked visitors not to remove the seeds from an installation. The question of taking the seeds was brought up by the journalists who attended the exhibition. Ai Weiwei said that although he understood the policy of the museum, if he were a visitor, he would unquestionably take one of the seeds. It is vital to note that, even with this kind of possibility of an event in the museum space, is an indication of the public's special advance to the space of the Turbine Hall. The main aim of the sunflower seeds installation was that people who visited Tate could walk on the surface of the seeds and come into some sort of interaction with the installation. However after 3 days of coming into existence, Tate modern made a decision to deny access to the installation and close the experimental part of the work. This was because the interaction of the visitors with the sculpture would cause dust which would be a health hazard following recurrent installation over a long period of time (Harvie, 91). The visitors' interaction was too exciting. The reaction to this decision was regrettable. The Tate attempted to make the visitors calm with gallery assistants offering the seeds to feel and touch. The space of the installation looked like an empty beach from a packed promenade. The comments from the visitors showed some sense of dissatisfaction with some saying that pictures of persons lying on it and walking were clearly seen. They said it was a great shame to them although beautiful. It is striking that the space of the Turbine Hall that the interaction with the artwork is taken for granted which indicates how diverse the approach to this space is rather than a usual art gallery. The success of the Turbine hall and the whole Tate can be attributed to a range of different factors. The Turbine Hall has enough size and independency. Visitors can access it without going through other museum galleries. It is a public space inside the museum and gives a sense of enclosed street, roughly a city squire within the museum (Wells, 84). The Turbine hall has unrestricted features. It depicts a place of all social classes may want to be and to ...