Introduction

Part of Tate Modern’s Unilever Series, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster’s TH.2058 looks 50 years into the future, as the inhabitants of London have taken shelter in the Turbine Hall from a never-ending rain. Under this premise, outdoor public sculptures have been effected by the rain as well: enlarged by 125%, replicas of iconic works by Louise Bourgeois, Alexander Calder, Henry Moore, Bruce Nauman, Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen fill the hall. 200 bunk beds scattered with books, are placed in orderly grids around them. On a large LED screen at one end of the space, edited excerpts from science fiction and experimental films play, while piercing lights suggest some unseen surveillance.

TH.2058 is an exploration of several key themes from Gonzalez-Foerster’s oeuvre of the last twenty years. The notion of the shelter, for instance, is partly inspired by her ideas of both real and fictional situations when London may have been attacked, whether by floods, air attacks or an invasion. It can also be traced back to her series Chambres, a sequence of environments that created evocative fictional or semi-fictional spaces with an intimate and personal character.