Shibboleth: Doris Salcedo's exhibition at the Tate Modern

Yesterday we visited the Shibboleth exhibition of the Colombian artist Doris Salcedo at the Tate Modern museum in London and I found it really interesting and I though I'd write my impressions and share it with you through the blog - if some of you read yesterday's Colombian newspaper El Tiempo you might have heard about it and if you are in London and read the papers, there has been info on it from Sunday and on.

Location: The turbine Hall of the Tate Modern museum in London
Artist: Doris Salcedo, born and works in Colombia
Cost: £300.000
Size: 548 feet long and 3 feet deep
Popular description of the work: "A crack in the floor"

A crack in the floor, that is what you see when you come in to the Turbine Hall. A massive crack in the concrete floor across the length of the turbine hall. I heard someone asking: Excuse me, where is the exhibition of Doris Salcedo? And the girl answered: It is there, it is just the crack. Well, at the end I have to agree, it is not just a crack. It is what it represents, feels, make you feel, inspire, transpire....and it does in my humbled opinion, maybe not all of the things the artist claims but it does make you think.

According to the official definition of the word Shibboleth (Title of the work) “A word used to as a test for detecting people from another district or country by their pronunciation " in other words a word to separate people one from another. A crack divides, separates, breaks.


She wants to show the stand off between reach and poor, colonialism and aftermath in postcolonial nations, division of southern and northern hemispheres.
If you are in London these days, you should take a look at the crack, it will be there at the turbine hall until April 08, until is filled with something else.