The Unilever Series: Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster.TH-2058-installation-view 2008 © Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster. Photo: Tate Modern

Tate Modern  Turbine Hall

October 14, 2008 - April 13, 2009

Tate Modern unveils the latest commission in The Unilever Series. TH.2058 by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster looks 50 years into the future, as the inhabitants of London take shelter in the Turbine Hall from a never-ending rain. Filled with 200 bunk beds scattered with books, the animal forms of gargantuan sculptures, a massive LED screen playing edited extracts from science-fiction and experimental films, and piercing lights that suggest some unseen surveillance, the Turbine Hall has taken on the appearance of an epic film set.

TH.2058 is an exploration of some of the artistic ideas that have preoccupied Gonzalez-Foerster over the last twenty years. The notion of the shelter, for instance, is partly inspired by her ideas of both real and fictional situations when London has been under attack, whether by flooding, bombing or invasion. It can also be traced back to her series Chambres, a sequence of environments which recreated fictional or personal and domestic spaces.

Widely regarded as one of France’s leading artists of the last two decades, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster was born in Strasbourg, France in 1965. She now lives in Paris and Rio de Janeiro. The Unilever Series: Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster is curated by Jessica Morgan, Curator of Contemporary Art, Tate Modern assisted by Ann Coxon, Assistant Curator, Tate Modern.