Shibboleth (artwork)
Encyclopedia
Installation art
Installation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...
by the Colombian
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
artist Doris Salcedo
Doris Salcedo
Doris Salcedo is a Colombian-born sculptor.Salcedo completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano in 1980, before traveling to New York, where she completed a Master of Fine Arts degree at New York University. She then returned to Bogotá to teach at the Universidad...
in Tate Modern
Tate Modern
Tate Modern is a modern art gallery located in London, England. It is Britain's national gallery of international modern art and forms part of the Tate group . It is the most-visited modern art gallery in the world, with around 4.7 million visitors per year...
. The work took the form of a long crack in the floor.
The work
Shibboleth by Doris Salcedo was a £300,000 installationInstallation art
Installation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...
, the eighth commission in the "Unilever Series" (sponsored by Unilever
Unilever
Unilever is a British-Dutch multinational corporation that owns many of the world's consumer product brands in foods, beverages, cleaning agents and personal care products....
), which takes place annually in the Turbine Hall, the main entrance lobby of Tate Modern
Tate Modern
Tate Modern is a modern art gallery located in London, England. It is Britain's national gallery of international modern art and forms part of the Tate group . It is the most-visited modern art gallery in the world, with around 4.7 million visitors per year...
in London. Salcedo's installation took the form of a 548-foot (167-metre) long, meandering crack in the floor of the Turbine Hall, initially a hairline crack and eventually widening to a few inches and around two feet deep. The crack was made by opening up the floor and then inserting a cast from a Colombian rock face. A Tate spokesperson said, "She’s not specifying how it’s been done. What she wants is for people to think about what’s real and what’s not."
Salcedo said of the work
Tate Director, Sir Nicholas Serota
Nicholas Serota
Sir Nicholas Andrew Serota is a British art curator. Serota was director of the Whitechapel Gallery, London, and The Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, before becoming director of the Tate, the United Kingdom's national gallery of modern and British art in 1988. He was awarded a knighthood in 1999. He...
stated, "There is a crack, there is a line, and eventually there will be a scar. It will remain as a memory of the work and also as a memorial to the issues Doris touches on." The work has gained the nickname "Doris's crack".
The exhibition took place from 9 October 2007 to 6 April 2008. Following the exhibition the crack was filled in however the "scar" of the work remains visible.
Health and safety
Prior to the exhibition's opening, the Tate's head of safety and security, Dennis Ahern, had warned of the danger of visitors tripping on the crack "with the potential for significant leg injury," but that "physical protection measures which would normally be applied to a gap of this nature are not deemed appropriate due to its artistic nature." In some places it was wide enough for a small child to fall into. The Tate placed warning signs and designated staff to monitor the exhibit and hand out leaflets. In the first month of the display, fifteen people were injured, mostly minor, but four of the accidents were reported to the Health and Safety ExecutiveHealth and Safety Executive
The Health and Safety Executive is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom. It is the body responsible for the encouragement, regulation and enforcement of workplace health, safety and welfare, and for research into occupational risks in England and Wales and Scotland...
.