The Tate Modern boasts that Doris Salcedo's Shibboleth is the first work in the big-budget Unilever series to "directly interfere in the fabric of the Turbine Hall." To me, it just seems like a waste of space; if you want to question the interaction of sculpture and space, architecture and the values it enshrines, or the dubious ideological foundations upon which Western notions of modernity and art are built, why not rend the entire museum to shreds? Why not totally destroy the Turbine Hall?
I visited the Tate several months before the unveiling of Shibboleth, and found the construction process way more interesting, a more potent interruption of the museum-going experience: only peeks of the work were available between heavily-draped plastic tarps. The shuttling in and out of workers coated in white dust, the persistent racket, and the urgent commandeering of visitors up and away from the construction area by haggard Tate employees was giddily chaotic, an incredible mess. In comparison, the work itself seems farcically elegant.