The trio of Danish artists known as Superflex has filled Tate Modern’s iconic Turbine Hall with swings.
Commissioned by Hyundai, One Two Three Swing! may be an excuse to have fun but the work also has a serious message.
All the swings are three-seaters, intending to show that swinging in a group has more potential than swinging alone.
Or, as Tate Modern puts it, ‘our collective energy resists gravity and challenges the laws of nature’.
Danish artists’ collective, Superflex, is renowned for its playfully subversive installations and films. Founded in 1993 by Danish artists Bjørnstjerne Christiansen, Jakob Fenger and Rasmus Nielsen, past projects include Flooded McDonalds. The 21 minute film showed a fast food outlet being slowly inundated with water. The work was designed to make the viewer consider ‘global consumerism, the fragility of contemporary structures, and the voyeuristic pleasure viewers often take in watching disaster unfold’.
An earlier work, Superkilen, engaged the local community in an urban park project celebrating diversity.
One Two Three Swing! is the third annual Hyundai Commission. In 2015, Abraham Cruzvillegas created Empty Lot, which included over 23 tons of London soil, from which grass, weeds and flowers slowly emerged.
The 2016 commission was by Philippe Parreno. Entitled Anywhen, the work reimagined the Turbine Hall with a constantly changing sequence of lights, soundscapes and films intended to bring the building’s architecture to life.
Images: © Tate Photography
