Tarek Atoui Brings Sonic Sculpture to Tate Modern Turbine Hall — SkimNews
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- Tarek Atoui has installed a new commission in Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, featuring water basins, rough-hewn rocks, brass trumpets, and glowing drums suspended from the roof girders of the former power station.
- The installation functions as an interconnected musical machine, with stones, water basins, pipes, and strings producing an ever-changing soundscape of bass notes, drumbeats, and a woman's singing voice.
- The reviewer invokes Leonardo da Vinci's fantastical musical instrument inventions as an apt comparison for Atoui's sculptural approach to sound.
- The piece evokes an ancient, labyrinthine city of floating towers, with the reviewer comparing its sounds to Lahore, Marrakesh, and an Istanbul market singer.
- The work carries undertones of mourning and melancholy, with the reviewer noting similarities to Sufi drummers and dervish traditions that induce a trancelike calm.
- A live electric guitar was performed at the press view, and the installation gathers ambient urban sounds from the surrounding Bankside area.
Why it matters: Tate Modern's Turbine Hall is the UK's most prominent platform for living artists, and the review positions Atoui alongside Leonardo da Vinci and Sufi traditions as an artist who treats sound as a spiritual medium. The commission rewards extended listening rather than quick viewing.
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