Apocalyptic vision of London comes to Tate Modern

Visitors to the Tate Modern gallery are about to face an apocalyptic vision of London partly inspired by the World War II Blitz and the July 7, 2005 transit bombings.

French artist Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster has transformed the gallery's vast Turbine Hall into a shelter for residents fleeing floods and endless rain in an imagined London 50 years from now.

Her installation "Th.2058," unveiled to the media Monday, centers on 200 metal bunk bed frames. The sound of rainfall can be heard while images from science-fiction films such as "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" play. Dystopian books by H.G. Wells, J.G. Ballard and Ray Bradbury lie atop the beds.

Gonzalez-Foerster said she was interested in using science fiction "as a tool to see the present."

"I've been reading science fiction since I was a child and I've always been sensitive to how most of the things we have seen now were already described," she said.

Giant animal sculptures, including a 65-foot-tall (20-meter-tall) pink flamingo by Alexander Calder and an oversized spider by Louise Bourgeois, loom over the exhibit.

Gonzalez-Foerster, 43, said visitors would be encouraged to linger, sit on the beds, read the books and contemplate the mood of the work.

The artist, who divides her time between Paris and Rio de Janeiro, said she was inspired by attacks imaginary and real, including the 2005 suicide bombings that killed 52 commuters in London and the Blitz.

She said the piece had been given extra resonance by the global economic crisis. But she insisted it was "not a pessimistic work."

"It has a dark side, but if you spend more time in it I hope that you get the feeling that it's not only dark," she said.

Gavin Neath, senior vice president of communications at exhibition sponsor Unilever, said the artist had "selected a scene so resonant to the terrifying times in which we live in at the moment. She sensed the moment very well."

The work is on display from Tuesday until April 13. It is the ninth installation to fill the 500- by 115-foot (150- by 34-meter) hall at the gallery, a former power station on the south bank of the River Thames.

The Turbine Hall commissions have become one of the most popular attractions at Tate Modern, which opened in 2000 and draws 4 million visitors a year.

Previous works have included Olafur Eliasson's "The Weather Project," an artificial sun that filled the space with yellow light, and Doris Salcedo's "Shibboleth," a crack running the length of the hall's floor.

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On the Net: http://www.tate.org.uk

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