The Irresistible Force, Tate Modern, Southbank, London till Nov 25. Free Reviewed by Piers Mostyn This small exhibition is an artistic window on globalised commodity production with seven emerging international artists providing one work each.
In "Brinco" Judi Werthein designed trainers to assist illegal immigrants cross the American border - equipped with a compass, map and other gadgets.
1000 were produced in China, mainly to be given away free to putative migrants in Mexico. Others were sold for £250 to the Californian elite.
The installation features one pair alongside TV screens showing interviews with the artist. US newscasters mix being appalled by this incitement to mass illegal immigration with a sneaking admiration at the apparent commercial spin-off.
It's a multi-faceted work that raises issues about commodity production, migration, the commodification of art and the way it is co-opted by the media.
Mika Rottenberg's video showed two women engaged in a makeshift home-based production line that stimulates fingernail growth which is then recycled as red cherries.
The alienated women in their soulless and cramped room are simultaneously agents of production and consumption.
Matei Bejemaru's "Travelling Guide" is a detailed chart and booklet showing how Romanians can illegally enter
UK presented in
juage and style o fficial guide before Romanias acession to the EU.
Conrad Bakker's carved and painted wooden copy of the Penguin edition of Marx's Capital volume 1 is also available for purchase -sending a message about the commodification not just of art but protest. But I found it somewhat unchallenging.
Claire Fontaine's "Strike" also lacked an edge. The word "Strike" was spelt out in large neon strips in a window facing out towards the city of London - with all that it represents.
The lights illuminate, but only when there is no movement, the word's visibility inversely related to the surrounding passivity.
The blurb by the entrance says that the exhibition "examines how economic factors shape our lives, as cultural values and traditions are realigned by global capitalism.
The title of the exhibition is deliberately ambiguous.
Is The Irresistible Force an advertising catchphrase for an intoxicating lifestyle or a Marxist slogan proclaiming the inevitable overthrow of capitalism by revolution?".
Seven years after Seattle, artistic consciousness is catching up with material reality at one of Britain's busiest visitor attractions.
Catch this quiet corner of subversion if you are popping in to see Salcedo's crack or the Louise Bourgeois retrospective.