Latifa Echakhch at Tate Modern
Amanda Alessandrine posted a photo:
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(via Uploads from Amanda Alessandrine.)
The first space is an immersive dark blue environment, made by lining the walls with thousands of sheets of carbon paper. The title of this work, For Each Stencil A Revolution 2007, or A Chaque Stencil une Révolution, looks back to the radical protests of the 1960s, when carbon paper was used to print multiple copies of revolutionary statements and images. Echakhch’s use of this archaic material, which has become almost redundant in an age of cheap photocopiers and laserprinting, casts a melancholy light on the legacy of 1968, itself now forty years in the past. There is also a performance element to the work, as Echakhch splashes paint thinning solvents against the paper so that the blue seeps down, gathering in pools at the bottom of the wall. The performative element and deep blue may allude to the work of Yves Klein, while the resulting streaks are reminiscent of the surface of a Colour Field painting, drawing attention to the sometimes tenuous links between the political claims of abstract art and the radical politics of the 1950s and 1960s.
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/latifaechakhch/default.shtm
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