All things arty

I spent a lovely day up in London with my sister Lou, walking along the Southbank as we headed for the Tate Modern. I havent been there for a couple of years and it is always such a great place and they usually have something a bit quirky in the main Turbine Hall. This time was no exception for there was a collection of giant silver space like tubes, twisting around to form about 6 or 7 different helter skelters.

Carsten Höller, was the creater and he described the experience of sliding as a ‘voluptuous panic upon an otherwise lucid mind’. The slides are impressive sculptures in their own right, and you don’t have to hurtle down them to appreciate this artwork. What interests Höller, however, is both the visual spectacle of watching people sliding and the ‘inner spectacle’ experienced by the sliders themselves, the state of simultaneous delight and anxiety that you enter as you descend.

Being pregnant however was not conducive to sliding down these silver tubes but was interesting watching a various children and adults throw themselves down a quite a fast rate of knots, whooping and wailing as they appeared to shoot out at the other end.

Feeling inspired by this huge creation, Lou decided it would be a good place to go for a lunchtime de-stressing session. Me, I would definetly opt for a good old fashioned back massage.