Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall is a gallery space just begging to be filled from floor to ceiling.
Last year’s takeover was a wake-up call to the migration crisis created by Tania Bruguera, which featured a chemical that caused visitors to cry.
Prior to that, the space has been filled by everything from swing sets to a giant sun.
This year it's the turn of American artist Kara Walker, known for her sometimes colossal works which make her a naturally great choice for the Hyundai Commission.
Walker’s Turbine Hall commission opens on October 2; before then, nothing is known about what she will do with the space. If you’re unfamiliar with her work, you won’t be for long – here is what you need to know:
Who is Kara Walker?
California-born Kara Walker is an American contemporary multi-disciplinary artist based in New York. Her work includes painting, printmaking, sculpture and installation, film-making and silhouette cutting.
She explores themes of race, identity, sexuality, gender and violence through her work. First coming to prominence at the age of 24 in 1994, she won the esteemed MacArthur 'Genius' Grant aged 27.
She has said of her work: "I didn't want a completely passive viewer. I wanted to make work where the viewer wouldn't walk away; he would either giggle nervously, get pulled into history, into fiction, into something totally demeaning and possibly very beautiful."
Walker will also have a solo exhibition at Sprüth Magers in Mayfair, called From Black and White to Living Color: The Collected Motion Pictures and Accompanying Documents of Kara E. Walker, Artist, which runs from October 4-December 21.
What are Kara Walker’s most famous artworks?
Walker is best known for her panoramic friezes of black cut-paper silhouetted figures, in which she references slavery and pre-war southern USA.
She first came to public attention at the age of 24, when she produced a mural from hand-cut paper silhouettes affixed to the wall of the Drawing Centre gallery in New York. “Gone, An Historical Romance of a Civil War as It Occurred Between the Dusky Thighs of One Young Negress and Her Heart” depicts a violent, nightmarish water-side scene in stark monochrome.
Walker’s first large-scale public project went on display in 2014, entitled “A Subtlety: Or… the Marvelous Sugar Baby an Homage to the unpaid and overworked Artisans who have refined our Sweet tastes from the cane fields to the Kitchens of the New World on the Occasion of the demolition of the Domino Sugar Refining Plant”. The giant, sphinx-like sculpture was made partially out of bleached sugar and was on display in an abandoned sugar refinery in Brooklyn.
What is the Tate Hyundai Commission?
Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall is a coveted space for artists creating large-scale work. The multi-story atrium, with a floor slanting downwards from street level, has been host to spectacular contemporary artworks from around the world. Tacita Dean, Rachel Whiteread and Anish Kapoor have all had work on display.
Olafur Eliasson’s The Weather Project saw the entire room bathed in the light of a giant yellow sun; Ai Weiwei filled the room with hand-crafted, porcelain sunflower seeds; Carsten Höller installed a slide for gallery visitors to use.
When is Kara Walker’s Hyundai Commission open?
Visitors can see the artwork from October 2 to April 5, 2020.
