Cildo Meireles at Tate Modern
Good heavens, this is one of the most moving exhibits I have experienced in a long time. And I mean to emphasize ‘experience’ over merely ’seeing’. Brazillian artist Cildo Meireles’ use of sound, audience participation and unconventional art materials such as baby powder, money and glass enables the viewer to erase the boundary between the merely conceptual and raw sensation, and in doing so creates encapsulating metaphors for political and existential limbo, vulnerability, despair. Yet, somewhere in there is also a poetic invitation to hope despite all the chaos and vertigo. Walking upon Meireles’ glistening shards of glass in my fabulous, open-toe heels of course really heightened a sense of confronting my own pathos and naked fragility, and yet it also evoked a strange feeling of power, which was indeed a wild surprise! I can clearly identify a couple distinct moments in my mind where I was not afraid of the potential pain that was everywhere present. Almost like an experience in meditation in which one finds peace and joy in the space between the ego and the self. What a gift this experience was. Don’t miss it.
£6000 worth of pennies
Leave a Comment October 22, 2008