A sniff of something different

Tate's Turbine Hall commission, London Korean Film Festival, Joe Locke's London stage debut and more

Hyundai Commission - Máret Ánne Sara. Photo: Tate (Larina Fernandez)

It is not often that to fully experience an artwork you are required to sniff the hairy backside of a reindeer, but there is a first time for everything.

What I’ve seen

I haven’t seen a lot this week because it was taken up with prep and then charging around Frieze Art Fair for a feature, but I did get down to the Tate Modern Turbine Hall to see the new Hyundai Commission from Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara.

It’s a tricky space to fill, and Sara’s installation, Goavve-Geabbil, isn’t really about scale, but intimacy – that of your relationship with the artwork, which is essential to its power, and that of the relationship between the Sámi people and the land they live on (Sámi are indigenous to the wider Sapmi region, which spans northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia’s Kola Peninsula), and the animals, in this case reindeer, with whom they work and get their livelihood. Sara is from a reindeer herding family, at risk as a result of government policy and climate change.

I reviewed it for The Times here, and I liked it very much. It does need a bit of explanation, which is in the wall texts, and a bit of time.

Regarding the smell, you have to get right up close to the hides that make up part of the first sculpture, Goavve-, but you must, because they’ve been imbued with the scent that reindeer give off when they’re under stress. It’s the smell of fear, essentially, and is predictably unpleasant.

In the second sculpture, -Geabbil, more of an installation, you sit in a maze of saplings based on the internal structure of a reindeer’s nose (a highly efficient appendage that enables them to survive in freezing temperatures), perch on the deep, soft hides and listen to what is effectively an audio documentary about Sámi reindeer herding, which is a lot more interesting and poetic than it sounds. The thick fur is scented with ‘hope’ – sweet native plants.

It’s not an instant ‘wow’ like some of the previous Turbine Hall commissions, but it is effective, and I wanted to linger. It’s there until April 6. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I also really enjoyed Peter Doig: House of Music at the Serpentine Gallery, which is both a gorgeously atmospheric exhibition of paintings and a deliciously nerdy deep dive into music and sound. Times review here; barring a few slightly icky nudes the paintings are fantastic, exploring the artist’s relationship with music across his career, and accompanied by tracks from his own vinyl collection, played on two handsome, absurdly large 1950s Klangfilm Euronor Junior speakers.