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Course: Tate > Unit 2
Lesson 4: Challenging the State- Hans Haacke: "A Breed Apart" in South Africa
- Doris Salcedo's "Shibboleth"
- Mounted police and crowd control at Tate Modern
- "Immigrant Movement International": Nationalism and immigration in the gallery
- Wang Peng: Performance as politics in China and beyond
- Key Points
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Mounted police and crowd control at Tate Modern
This video brought to you by Tate.org.uk
In artist Tania Bruguera’s 2007 performance Tatlin’s Whisper #5, unwitting gallery-goers are confronted by mounted police who ride back and forth throughout the gallery space, corralling people and controlling their movements. Visitors who expect to walk freely through the museum are presented instead with a controlled and threatening environment. In this video, the Cuban artist talks about her performance work and explains why, instead of presenting images that can be viewed at a safe distance, she wants people to personally experience the dynamics of power. Performance art has the unique power of being able to activate viewers and invite them to become part of the artwork, giving them a sense of power they might not otherwise experience in a gallery setting. But in this case Bruguera has turned performance art on its head, and instead of empowering her audience she intentionally makes them feel disempowered.
In artist Tania Bruguera’s 2007 performance Tatlin’s Whisper #5, unwitting gallery-goers are confronted by mounted police who ride back and forth throughout the gallery space, corralling people and controlling their movements. Visitors who expect to walk freely through the museum are presented instead with a controlled and threatening environment. In this video, the Cuban artist talks about her performance work and explains why, instead of presenting images that can be viewed at a safe distance, she wants people to personally experience the dynamics of power. Performance art has the unique power of being able to activate viewers and invite them to become part of the artwork, giving them a sense of power they might not otherwise experience in a gallery setting. But in this case Bruguera has turned performance art on its head, and instead of empowering her audience she intentionally makes them feel disempowered.
What purpose do you think Bruguera’s performance serves? Is it okay for police to corral and give orders to an audience, whether they like it or not? Do you think an experience like this gives the visitor an opportunity to think about and question the idea of state power without facing real consequences?
. Created by Tate.Want to join the conversation?
Did anyone challenge the authority of the mounted police? If so, what happened? And, on a lighter note, who cleaned up after the horses?(8 votes)
From the documentation that I've seen, it doesn't seem as if anyone in the audience challenged the authority of the police, although many were visibly perplexed or hesitant while following orders. It's interesting to think of what might have happened if someone did defy the orders of the police, and if that attitude would have caught on among others. This piece has been performed several times in varying locations, so perhaps the outcome was different elsewhere.
As for the horses, I'm sure someone was officially assigned that duty. :)
For more info on Tania Bruguera and this project: http://www.taniabruguera.com/cms/478-0-Tatlins+Whisper+5.htm(6 votes)
- It's remind me like a scene from a candid camera movie or an experiment on a psychological laboratory. And this raise the question what this perform is doing on a museum?(3 votes)
Is the start of the video using some sort of Java Script to make the animations?(1 vote)
Video transcript
you what actually happens is that you arrive to a museum to see artwork and you encounter two Mounted Police dressed with the uniform under under horses and who are actually using all the techniques they learn in the police academy and through their experience as policemen to control the audience of the exhibition you have this police work coming towards you and giving you direction of what to do were to move if you have to stand or you have to move somewhere and they're using actually the horses to make this happen like they usually do in their everyday job and stuff people kind of acetabulum so I please the people do not have to know that is art and for me this is very important because because once you know it side then you start you can do other associations that are not exactly what you will do in your everyday life so the fact that they're using and having the same reaction they have in real life when they see the police controlling them for me it's very important I am working in a way which I like people not to think it's art so they can really enjoy it as a live event and not as a representation of a live event and what I'm actually doing is each piece is like a little vignette where the audience can have a little piece of experience with power in this case is with the police in the next case which I'm going to do in a bomb in Valencia is going to be to feel that you are in power for one minute so it's all this different stage of power also but through the image so every piece I've done so far they let's say the quotation the visual quotation is an image I've seen on TV in the news on TV and this is very important because it's how can you transform our main source of political education or bad education which is the news into something else Mounted Police is something you can see in the photos in the 68th you can see it in you know 35 1935 1968 in 2000 you know so it's kind of historically recurrent image of power you know and always linked to a very specific political action in order from the audience I mean from the people so yeah and I really like that people here were reacting with the same kind of a spirit like you know oh is this about controlling people is this about terrorism this is so I really like that people really have all this inside them that they don't want to think about it no it's kind of a way to bring them back to self-consciousness of the moment we're living at the right you