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Copyright: © Roger Hiorns | CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Photo: Tate
Editor: Here we have Roger Hiorns's "Untitled," a suspended sculpture of indeterminate date, held in the Tate collection. The work as a whole feels strangely mechanical, yet also fragile. What role do you think the institutional setting plays in how we perceive such an object? Curator: The museum inherently elevates objects, imbuing them with a significance they might not possess elsewhere. Hiorns’s piece, with its industrial components, challenges this elevation. Does the gallery space critique or legitimize this work, considering its everyday materials? Editor: That's a great point. It makes me wonder if the artist is commenting on the art world itself. What are your overall thoughts? Curator: Indeed. Hiorns invites us to question the very nature of art and its place within our culture. Is this commentary on mass production, or a commentary on the elite museum world? Editor: I never considered those aspects before. Thanks!
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Untitled is one of a series of six untitled, hollow ceramic vessels collectively known as Beachy Head (Tate T12457–T12462). These works are designed to be suspended from the ceiling with stainless steel wire and filled with soap detergent. The ceramic vessel that constitutes the body of Untitled is formed from three stacked cylinders of varying diameter. Each of the cylinders is decorated with a narrow banded relief much like a bolt or screw thread. The vessel is finished with an off-white glossy glaze. From the centre of its base runs a transparent silicon hose that is connected to an air compressor that feeds oxygen into the vessel. When the air compressor is switched on, the oxygen mixes with the soap detergent to produce frothy white foam that exudes out of the vessel’s spout. This column of foam, which maintains the cylindrical form of the inside of the vessel, grows steadily upwards until it can no longer support itself. The foam bends and flops flaccidly around the vessel before oozing on to the floor below, leaving a sticky entropic residue. The device continues to produce the foamy precipitate until the emission is entirely dispersed.
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