In London, a crack is exhibited as a masterpiece of contemporary art. Two had already failed

Two visitors to the exhibition in the Tate Modern gallery failed into a man -made crack in the floor, which is a masterpiece of contemporary art. One of them received an easy injury.

The crack, into which women fell, has 167 m lengths, 25 cm width and about a meter of depth, the The Daily Mail newspaper writes. The work of art wriggles on the surface of the floor of the so -called turbine hall (the museum is located in the building of the former power plant).

As one of the eyewitnesses said, at first a young woman accidentally “fell into a crack by two legs, so the floor for her was at the level of the knees. In the meantime, friends helped her get out and were interested in the well -being of the victim, another visitor intentionally tried to stand on a work of art, as she considered a crack drawn.

If the first victim got off with a slight fright, then in the second case, female curiosity led to her wrist injury.

“Instead of being the art of imitation of life, it (crack) poses a threat to life,” said one of the witnesses of what had happened.

In turn, the representative of the art gallery said that, despite what had happened, the leadership does not plan to put a fence around the work of Columbian sculptor Doris Salsedo. She added that this is so far the only such case, although about 12 thousand people came to look at the installation in the first day.

According to the museum employees, the danger of visitors is warned both orally and in special brochures handed over to their hands. In addition, there are a large number of caretakers in the halls.

This is not a crack, but "integration of immigrants"

The author of the traumatic installation "Shibblet" is the Colombian artist Doris Salsedo. And in the museum, her brainchild is called only "a crack of Doris."

The cost of this masterpiece is estimated at 540 thousand dollars. Salsedo herself explained that she worked on installation on two continents, and the work itself symbolizes the problem of integrating immigrants into European society. The name "Shibbolet", meaning "Kolos", is borrowed by the author of work from the Old Testament Book of Judges, which tells about internodes and linguistic discrimination. According to the pronunciation of this word (through "w" or through "C"), the Galaadites distinguished their fellow tribesmen from the Efremlin.

Among the previous works, Salsedo was, for example, a house in Istanbul, filled with 1550 chairs and skeletons of beds with guts of animals. The project symbolized faceless migrants in the vastness of the global economy. Another work of Salcedo became a wardrobe flooded with cement (symbolized violence in the house).

“I always try to connect my works with the tragedy,” says Doris Salcedo.

Salsedo says that it took her more than a year to create an installation, and the last five weeks have gone to place it in the Tate gallery. How - the author refused to explain. The director of the museum assures that the sculptural integrity of the building is not broken.

“The main thing is the peaceful meaning of the work. But the performance is not important,” Salcedo says, adding that her work is “bottomless and deep like humanity itself”.

We add that the premises of the turbine hall are usually used for impressions of very large objects, such as the bronze spider Louise Bourgeois or a kind of "American hills" of the German artist Karsten Holler (2006 installation called "test venue").