Scared Stiff!
- Adrian Liley
- Aug 16, 2019
- 2 min read
I don't normally write two blogs within three days, but I had to share this with everyone. I visited the Tate Modern in London last week with a friend -and we went to see an exhibition by an Icelandic artist, called Oliafur Eliasson.
Now... before you switch off and go away, just hear me out for two or three paragraphs. This artist is amazing. From the moment you step out of the lift to get to the exhibition, your senses are attacked! Searing orange light leaves you stumbling around and swearing for a few seconds. That's just the start. The next 30 minutes are truly staggering. It's not so much an exhibition as an assault course on your senses. There's long smoke-filled corridors, where you can barely see anything and approach panic, as you try to reach the exit door, kaleidoscopic mirror tunnels which make you feel as though you're on a particularly nice acid trip and a room where you can build your own tower block out of lego-type materials, adding to the bizarre city already there.
There's a big room with a mirror on the ceiling where you can lie down and play 'Where's Wally?' and a mirror ball room which looks like it came from an Austin Powers film. And there's even a totally darkened room where you can see absolutely nothing at all. Then suddenly there's a bright flash and you get an image of a waterfall captured for a split second. Your eyes act like a camera.
It's just brilliant. You leave the place physically, mentally and psychologically exhausted. Great for everyone, except those of a nervous disposition, or anyone with easily-triggered migraines!
The blurb says that Eliasson likes to play with reflections, inversions, after-images and shifting colours. Damn right, he does. And I can tell you that the bar was pretty packed as well, at the end of the exhibition, with people sinking anything they could lay their hands on with shaky hands.
Well worth a visit - especially for families with youngsters and teenagers. Nothing quite like scaring the eebie-jeebies out of the little ones!
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