Wednesday 1 December 2010

Mike Nelson's 'Coral Reef' at the Tate B


This piece was incredible. I've never experienced anything like it. I don't want to give it away too much, because I think if you can - go and see it!









You wander around these rooms and explore them and you go through the most wonderful mixture of emotions. 








Firstly, I experienced curiosity, the place was fascinating - a maze of oddly decorated and dilapidated rooms that felt eerie yet interesting.









Then I began to feel a little odd. Kind of freaked out or edgy. The people you came in with seem to have disappeared. The scary masks and claustrophobia start to make you feel odd.







So you try to find the exit. And it's just nowhere! You go round and round in circles, trying to map out the rooms in your head but getting stumped at every turn. It becomes a little panicked.




Then something very brilliant happened. I began to find it very funny. I kept finding myself in this same bloody room, every door I opened, I always ended up there! And I couldn't help feeling like laughing.


And of course, you do finally find you way out. It's such a relief!

Not because the experience wasn't inspiring, but just because you need to chill out for a bit afterwards and collect your thoughts.

The experience itself was the art, the piece is dead in these photographs. You need to go there and experience it because it is then that the art comes alive.

This was one of the most invigorating pieces I've seen at the Tate B in a long time.
Loved it.