Laurent Muller visits Miroslaw Balka´s ´How It Is' at Tate Modern

 

For its 10^th annual commission, the Tate Modern is presenting Miroslaw Balka’s sculpture, How It Is.
But what is it I wonder?  It’s an enormous mass of black steel, an enormous container far away. It’s an oppressive belly as you walk underneath of its surface, perched on thin fragile legs. And there is life all around it. As I observe the laughter and amusement of strangers around me I must know more about it.
Is it alive? Is it sad and serious?

Unconsciously, I follow the voices. Unconsciously, an awful taste of horror comes deep within my guts. History is right there and this container leads to its atrocious memory.
The access ramp is facing the thin elongated windows of the Turbine hall. I turn my back to them as I walk in as if a story is coming to an end. I fear the moment. The dimensions are eloquent but the presence of people around me makes me forget them. What is there to see, feel and remember? I hesitate a second and forget about my camera. I want to experience alone, without any safety net.
Maybe the hope of being shaken has been built up too high. I walk to the black end of the container and don’t realize its limit. The wall of flesh, standing up facing its entrance is actually pushed to the spatial frontier of the space. I touch the steel of blackness and understand.


What is there to understand? So much and so little really. I will never be one of these deported souls of WW2, I will never be Balka either. And if my experience was not so dramatic today, maybe I should be grateful and embracing light with more desire of life…

http://www.tate.org.uk/