Tate Modern fountain tells 'jarring' history of British empire | Art and design | The Guardian
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@lanre_bakare Kara Walker’s Fons Americanus fountain, which opens to the public on Wednesday 2 October and is the latest Turbine Hall commission at Tate Modern, was inspired by the Queen Victoria memorial outside Buckingham Palace. Kara Walker Turbine Hall review – a shark-infested monument to the victims of British slavery Read more Described as a “sardonic counterprogram to the celebration of empire”, Walker was inspired by the Queen Victoria memorial after seeing it from her taxi window on the way to Heathrow, after accepting the Tate commission. The huge monument was also inspired by the Trevi fountain in Rome, and contains references to Damien Hirst’s formaldehyde shark, Winslow Homer’s Gulf Stream and JMW Turner’s Slave Ship. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Kara Walker’s Turbine Hall installation tells the ‘origin story of the Africa diaspora’. Photograph: Tate Modern/PA Walker said there was a direct comparison between the Confederate statues in the US, which have polarised opinion and triggered a debate about whether they are inherently racist, and monuments to the British empire such as the Victoria memorial. “It’s only really recently that there’s been a concerted national conversation about these monuments, about how they got there and what they mean,” she said. The artist, best-known for her 2014 work A Subtlety, the huge sphinx-like figure she housed in an old sugar factory, told the Guardian the Turbine Hall commission was an “irresistible … grand prize”, and that she had had to educate herself about the history of race and Britain in preparation. Hilton Als, the New Yorker critic and curator of a solo show at Sprüth Magers that coincides with her Tate commission, said Walker was a “social critic with heart” whose work has consistently explored America and Britain’s shared and complex racial history. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Kehinde Wiley’s Rumors Of War, in Times Square, New York. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images Walker said both Kehinde Wiley’s newly installed Times Square monument, Rumors of War, which is 8 metres (26ft) tall and references Confederate statues, and her own Turbine Hall commission formed “an interesting moment for monumentality”. “What the Confederate debate and removal of statues from places like New Orleans has done is not just reignited the debate, but unearthed the racism and cruelties that have lived fairly quietly under the surface for some time,” she said. Turbine Hall artist Kara Walker: 'Apparently, the only thing I am is black' Read more “It’s like James Baldwin said, he never wanted to be in an ivory tower cultivating his talent, he wanted to be out in the world expressing it,” he said. “It’s a continuation of this idea that the artist wants to be in the moment and commenting on the world around them.”