Tarek Atoui’s Turbine Hall review – hallelujah, it’s raining musical instruments!
Tate Modern, London The Lebanese artist has turned trumpets, drums, cones and voices into an ingenious, interconnected sonic beast with funny, sad and mystical results. Prepare to feel the earth move! On the floor of the Turbine Hall, there are wide water basins and huge flattish rough-hewn rocks you might see on moorland or in a desert. You can sit or stand or climb on them. But if you look up, you won’t be able to…
Key points
- Tarek Atoui's Turbine Hall installation at Tate Modern features suspended trumpets and drums, water basins, and rough-hewn rocks.
- The installation produces an ever-changing soundscape of abstract, non-melodic music, including bass notes and a woman's voice.
- The review describes the work as an interconnected musical machine that is funny, sad, and mystical.
Tarek Atoui's new installation in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, London, transforms the space with wide water basins, large rough-hewn rocks, and suspended musical instruments. Immense brass trumpets and giant glowing drums appear to float in the air, hanging from the former power station's roof girders.
The Lebanese artist's sculptural creations and found objects resonate with an ever-changing, invisible art of noises. A deep bass note throbs from a hanging trumpet or a translucent cone, while a drumbeat booms and a woman's voice sings notes of nostalgia and melancholy.
An interconnected musical machine
The review calls the installation entrancing, with abstract, non-melodic sounds that guide visitors through a forest of solid things. Atoui teases the mind with how the instruments, stones, water basins, pipes, and strings produce the sonic outpouring, forming an interconnected musical machine.
The work also has a warm, absurdist humour. The reviewer compares it to Leonardo da Vinci's wild musical instruments, noting that Atoui, like Leonardo, seems to be searching for a lost harmony in the world.
You have to surrender to it
— The Guardian reviewer
Mournful and mystical sounds
Sadness hovers in the sounds as bass notes pound and build to an apocalyptic blast. The towering, floating pinnacles, mysterious voice, and crescendo of percussion evoke an ancient, tumultuous labyrinth of a city, reminiscent of Lahore, Marrakesh, or a street singer in Istanbul.
Ultimately, the work resists fixed meaning. The reviewer says, 'You have to surrender to it,' and notes similarities to Sufi drummers and dervishes who use music and motion to create a liberating, trancelike calm. The installation is described as rich, ingenious, funny, sad, and mystical.
