Mire Lee: Open Wound

With a new large-scale sculptural installation, artist Mire Lee reimagines Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall as the inside of a body, transforming it into an eerie and fantastical factory. Blending her interest in rigid mechanical systems and soft organic forms with the industrial history of Tate Modern’s architecture, the work considers the emotional and physical impact of living in a world affected by precarity and decline. For her first major presentation of work in the U.K., Lee explores the tension between beauty and the grotesque on an unrivaled scale.

“Open Wound” is the ninth annual Hyundai Commission, and realizes the Turbine Hall as a construction site, filling it with membranous fabric sculptures Lee calls “skins,” suspended from the ceiling on 49 metal chains. At the east end of the hall, a seven-meter-long turbine hangs from one of the building’s original cranes, specifically recommissioned for this installation. This motorized mechanical device is a nod to the eponymous coal- and oil-fired turbines that once occupied the heart of Tate Modern during the building’s former life as the Bankside Power Station. Removing the casing from the Turbine Hall bridge to offer a glimpse into its inner workings, Lee reawakens the building’s industrial past.

The new work also looks towards the duality of regeneration and decay. Slowly spinning, the industrial turbine assumes surprisingly human qualities—pumping viscous, dark pink liquid through dangling, vein-like silicone tubes collecting in a large sloping tray underneath. Here, fabric sculptures made from construction mesh and bent steel rebar hang, absorbing the liquid and forming new “skin” sculptures. These are carried by technicians to drying racks, a process that feels both artisanal and suggestive of an industrial production line. Once dry, the skins are hoisted onto the chains suspended from the ceiling, redolent of the pulley systems used in coal miners’ changing rooms to dry uniforms and keep clothing clean—a liminal space between their labor and personal lives. Suggestive of anatomy, the skins speak of vulnerability, the necessity of care and human touch, and the production of new bodies and identities. Throughout the commission’s run, the number of new hanging skins will increase, creating a sense of the building “shedding” increasingly over time.

Materiality is central to Lee’s practice, and she exploits the visceral qualities of her sculptures and installations to generate emotional reactions. Employing Lee’s distinct visual language that creates organic, fleshy forms from industrial materials, “Open Wound,” presents a world of contrasts and thresholds: human and machine, soft and hard, inside and outside, individual and collective. The installation is intended to have an unsettling effect on the viewer, evoking a range of contradictory emotions, including feelings of tenderness and empathy, as well as melancholy, awe, and disgust. Engaging the senses on a bodily level, Lee considers our fears, vulnerabilities, hopes, and desires as we stand together on the brink of an uncertain future.

“Open Wound” is in partnership with Hyundai Motor with support from The Mire Lee Supporters, The Mire Lee Supporters Circle, and Tate Americas Foundation. It is curated by Alvin Li, Curator, International Art, supported by Asymmetry Art Foundation, Tate Modern; and Bilal Akkouche, Assistant Curator, Tate Modern; with additional thanks to Ann Coxon, former Curator, International Art, Tate Modern and produced by Nancy Cooper, Production Manager, Tate Modern.