Tate Modern is ten! And celebrating its birthday with a weekend of art, music and assorted fun times. Tom Jeffreys dons his party hat.
It really doesn't seem like ten years ago that Tate Modern plonked its bad self down on the South Bank, and in the process transformed Bankside Power Station from architectural oddity to one of London's most popular tourist attractions. But it's true. This weekend Tate Modern is celebrating its tenth birthday in style, with No Soul For Sale, a three-day programme of art, performance and music. And if the sense of fun that pervades the press view continues all weekend then it's going to be a belter.
The Turbine Hall has been filled with all manner of arty weirdness by a host of contemporary art collectives, studios and artist-run organisations from all over the world, and it really is a sight to behold. There's an enormous brown inflatable globe, a Zeppelin emblazoned with the words 'Le Dictateur', a garden shed, an old-fashioned pub, a baby outfit for Siamese twins, piles of a newspaper called Old News, and a stall (run by the Jerusalem-based Barbur) making and selling weird trinkets involving mutated little camels.
There's so much going on that it is a little overwhelming, but certain things do stand out. At Hell Gallery, there's a small burger stand at which someone is making and selling 'fur burgers' made of cardboard, coloured paper and, um, fur. There's even a bit of fur-filled vom on the floor. Nice. Tate Trumps is also really cool – it's a kind of arty iPhone top trumps game, the result of a collaboration between Tate Modern and the wonderful folks at Hide&Seek. Over at Filipa Olivera + Miguel Amado, they've set up, rather topically, a ballot box. Voting slips ask the question, “Would you like to participate?”. The three available boxes are: Yes, No, and None of the Above. It's pretty hilarious.
I slightly fall in love with a massive composite walnut wardrobe/wall/unit thing – it's like all the best old furniture from the Antiques Roadshow spliced together. But for me, the highlight is definitely the work of Liverpool's Royal Standard. Basically there's loads of little pieces of art produced by the 27 artists that all work in their studios, each with a raffle ticket next to it. To be in with a chance of winning one of the works all you have to do is come up with an idea that the lovely Royal Standard people like the sound of. Of course I can't think of anything, but Lauren comes up with a suggestion involving something called a Quad Vod (apparently it's all the rage in Liverpool). After an elaborate judging performance, it's decided that this is a Good Idea, and Lauren wins a rather charming little painting by Hamish McLain. I, alas, leave with nothing.
The whole festival/event/fair/exhibition is really rather fun, and everyone seems to be having a splendid time, but is No Soul For Sale in any way representative of Tate Modern's activities over the past decade? Well Tate Modern is often accused of causing (or at least contributing to) the Disneyfication of art and indeed the notion of the cultural institution in general. It's all about the brand, the visitor numbers, and the 'experience'; the importance of the actual work itself being sadly rather relegated.
There is probably some truth in this, and certainly No Soul For Sale seems more about the overall experience than the individual works on show. But then that's probably no bad thing, and when something's as fun as this undoubtedly is, then who cares? People will always make of art what they will – surely the more attractive and accessible the experience is, the better? Who knows... At e-flux, I'm struck by a quotation from Sean Snyder. It says: “In the art world people don't entirely know what they are talking about.” How dull it would be if we did. Happy birthday Tate Modern!
No Soul For Sale is at Tate Modern from 14th-16th May 2010.
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Image credits (L-R) Installation by Kling and Bang from Reykjavik; Installation views - both Tate Photography
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