Review: Shibboleth by Doris Salcedo

After a string of dull commissions in the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, the new Shibboleth by Doris Salcedo is a welcome breath of fresh air.

On first impressions, Shibboleth, which starts as a hairline crack in the floor, does little to fill the vast space of the Turbine Hall like previous pieces such as Holler’s slides or Kapoor’s red PVC Marsyas. But that is just the impression it is meant to give.

Shibboleth is a Hebrew term by origin and means a word or phrase that distinguishes a group of people from another. Salcedo has used the name to highlight the differences between Colombia, where she was born, and the prosperous countries of the west.

Running the length of the Turbine hall, the crack, like a bolt of lightening, splits and widens to become a growing chasm, big enough for children to play in. Walking along it, the installation purposely concentrates the eye on the floor, allowing the viewer to forget the enormity of the space they are in.

Salcedo’s most famous work to date, is a tower of 1550 chairs between two Istanbul buildings for the city’s biennale. The eighth artist to be shown as part of the hall’s Unilever Series she has succeeds where many of her predecessors failed. Producing both a visually interesting and contemplative piece, leaving viewers, as they follow the crack’s 167m path, wondering just how it was made.

Like 1550 Chairs, which was built to draw attention to the anonymity of economic migrants, Shibboleth is also a political piece. By fracturing the hall it symbolises a world divided by racism and colonialisation. The deliberate use of steel mesh inside the fissure adds to the feeling of tension, by seemingly holding the sides of the crack apart, preventing it from healing.

Salcedo is the first artist outside Europe and North America to take on the challenge of filling the immense hall; following the drab aural collage of Nauman’s Raw Materials and the unoriginal plastic boxes of Whitehead’s Embankment, lets hope Salcedo is not the last.