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The Tate's 30mph twisters
By Tom Teodorczuk, Evening Standard 09.10.06
On the slide: two of the five giant helter skelters installed in the Tate's Turbine Hall by Carsten Holler. They will stay until April
The biggest slide is 55m long
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Tate Modern today unveiled the largest slide in Britain which will fill the vast Turbine Hall.
The Bankside gallery has been turned into a large playground with visitors able to travel down five large slides which spiral through the huge space connecting the galleries with Turbine Hall. The biggest slide is 55.5 metres long and has a drop of 27 metres.
See more pictures from the exhibition here
The helter skelter, entitled Test Site, is the brainchild of German installation artist Carsten Holler who sees slides as an essential mode of human transport. He wants to see slides connecting MPs with their offices and the House of Commons chamber and between shopping centres and Tube stations.
Visitors will be able to sit in canvas sacks and slide from the fifth floor to the ground, accelerating to 30mph. Three chutes depart from each of the main levels. The slides of stainless steel and polycarbonate acrylic glass will stay until next April and are the latest in the Unilever series of Turbine Hall installations.
Holler said: "Going down can be like being under the influence of a drug, a thrilling experience, but it is also a fast and efficient way of getting from A to B. It's a playground for the body and the brain. It's art and it's not art."
A spokesman for Tate said that Hˆller viewed slides as a way of directly improving people's state of mind and livelihoods.
He said: "The installation is an experiment into the reception of slides by the public and the effect they have. Hˆller's proposition is that slides could and perhaps should be incorporated into existing architecture and future buildings ... because the frequent act of sliding could bring about untold changes in our everyday behaviour and outlook."
Holler made a giant slide at the headquarters of fashion company Prada connecting its boss Miuccia Prada's personal office to her car.
Perhaps predictably Charles Thomson, Stuckist artist and longstanding critic of the Tate, criticised the slide: "Slides are not art. All (Tate director) Sir Nicholas Serota needs to do is to get rid of the few bits of art the Tate does possess. Then he could turn the whole of Tate Modern into a theme park."
Reader views (12)
Here's a sample of the latest views published. You can click view all to read all views that readers have sent in.
Hi,is the Goant slide still at the Tate Gallery? We are visiting soon and want to take a ride? Thanks, Joyce & Brian in California!
- Joyce Granville, San Francisco Bay Area USA
I think the slides are a brilliant way of incorporting art into our everyday lives, although they are not traditional art, we do not live in a traditional country any more so they are moving with the times, it is also putting fun back into art that so many young people take for granted. Art can be percieved however the person wants, one man's slide is another man's art. I, myself think it is a fantastic idea as it envokes happiness and the fun of art in me. I just love it.
- Chelsea, Southend-on-sea, England
We went here on our Art trip on Spring Break! But that's besides the point. My teacher says art is creating things that haven't been created before, and I certainly haven't seen anything like those slides incorporated in that way before. So it's not on a canvas, so what? And I totally agree about the "Art is something that can evoke emotion..." thing Marc, good thing to make a point about.
- Helen Ward, Southaven, MS, United States
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