Ah, the halcyon days of the 1970s; kipper ties, disco music and roasting-hot summers. How we long for the chance to wear bell-bottoms the first time round, and be the first generation scared witless by Jaws. Well, the Tate Modern is giving us all a chance for a bit of retrospection – recreating that famed exhibition opening in May 1971, which saw members of the public ‘interacting’ with ‘Bodyspacemotionthings’, an installation by American artist Robert Morris.
In a time where art was hung on walls or balanced on plinths, this chance to weave between it, lift it up and slide down it – caused quite a stir, at the time the Telegraph reported that exhibition-goers ‘ went bloody mad’. Reports of girls in mini skirts and men swinging exhibits around their heads shocked and appalled the British public.
We think it all sounds rather exciting which is why we were overjoyed to learn that the Tate Modern is recreating the exhibition this spring – but hopefully with less hysteria. Robert, who is now 78, explains that Bodyspacemotionthings is “an opportunity for people to involve themselves with the work, become aware of their own bodies, gravity, effort, fatigue, their bodies under different conditions.
“I want to provide a situation where people can become more aware of themselves and their own experience rather than more aware of some version of my experience.”
The original exhibition had to close after just four days, with many of the exhibits being destroyed and with several people suffering injuries from the unfinished, raw materials – including the men who swung heavy metal chains above their head and the numerous mini-skirted women who got splinters from the rough wood.
Kathy Noble, a Tate curator who is reinstalling the work, has promised that this exhibition will be much less hazardous “Bodyspacemotionthings will be made using contemporary design methods and materials, including plywood, rubber elements and solid steel structures, which will bring the work up to current health and safety standards”
You can experience the recreation as part of UBS Openings: The Long Weekend, from 22-25 May.
