TH.2058, 2008 (TATE MODERN, TURBINE HALL)
Part of the Tate Modern’s Unilever Series, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster’s TH.2058
looks 50 years into the future, as the inhabitants of London have taken shelter in the
Turbine Hall from a never-ending rain. Under this premise, outdoor public sculptures
have been effected by the rain as well: enlarged by 125 % replicas of iconic works by
Louise Bourgeois, Alexander Calder, Henry Moore, Bruce Nauman, Claes Oldenburg
and Coosje van Bruggen fill the hall. 200 bunk beds scattered with books, are placed
in orderly grids around them. On a large LED screen at one end of the space, edited
excerpts from science fiction and experimental films play, while piercing lights suggest
some unseen surveillance.
TH.2058 is an exploration of several key themes from Gonzalez-Foerster’s oeuvre of the
last twenty years. The notion of the shelter, for instance, is partly inspired by her ideas
of both real and fictional situations when London may have been attacked, whether by
floods, air attacks or an invasion. It can also be traced back to her series Chambres,
a sequence of environments that created evocative fictional or semi-fictional spaces
with an intimate and personal character.
TH.2058, 2008
3 reproduced sculptures (125% of original size, Calder, Moore, Bourgeois) or 6 reproduced sculptures in original size
(Calder, Moore, Bourgeois, Nauman, Oiticia, Oldenburg) LED Screen (approx. 12 x 6,75 m, 16:9 format), 229 metal bunk
beds, approx. 10.000 science fiction books, sound
The Unilever Series, Tate Modern, Turbine Hall, London, 2009
(DGF 170)
26