Anywhen sees the Turbine Hall’s lights controlled and activated according to different sequences.
An additional moving light casts shadows throughout the hall and a large central ‘marquee’ – a canopy covered in lights – is suspended over the Level 1 bridge.
A changing soundscape is broadcast from various sources, the artists says, with the intent of “blurring the sense of inside and outside, public and private, natural and technological.”
Vertical and horizontal acoustic panels, a grid of speakers and photography shown on a projector come together in different configurations, presenting still and moving images featuring a stage ventriloquist and underwater creatures.
Philippe Parreno’s works explore “the borders between reality and fiction, the experience of time and the ritual form of the exhibition,” Tate Modern say of the artist in a statement.
Parreno lives and works in Paris. His work is part of museum collections, including Tate, MoMA, New York, and the Centre Pompidou, Paris.
His exhibitions include Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2013), The Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture, Moscow (2013), The Serpentine Gallery, London (2010) and the Centre Pompidou, Paris (2009).
Following the opening of the new Tate Modern this summer, Anywhen is the first commission to respond to the Turbine Hall’s new position at the centre of the museum, “an open space connected to the city itself,” the gallery says, “and free for the public to enter from many different levels and directions.”
Tino Seghal and Isabel Lewis worked with Parreno on the photography and film sequence. The sound has been designed by Nicolas Becker with Cengiz Hartlap, while actress, comedian and ventriloquist Nina Conti features in the film.
Philippe Parreno’s Anywhen from the 4 October 2016 to 2 April 2017 at the Turbine Hall, Tate Modern. For more information see here.
