Big Brother isn't the only cultural phenomenon dividing public opinion annually since the turn of the millennium. There's also the giant artwork in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, which over the years has been amazing, tedious, thought-provoking, bland, must-see, involving, unimpressive, mysterious, clever-ish, good enough and a complete waste of space.
So what have we got this year?
It's in three parts - a big hanging sheet at one end, another big hanging sheet at the other end and a golden mobile in the centre. You can't get it all in one shot.
For a change I thought I'd turn up knowing nothing about the artwork so I could come to it fresh and without preconceptions. Would I appreciate its potential excellence, and could I work out what it was supposed to represent?
The first big sheet is really huge, stretching down almost to the floor but with sufficient headroom so a tall man wouldn't knock it if they walked underneath, even with a child on their shoulders. It's mostly yellow on one side and mostly red on the other. It looked like it was made from lots of small things sewn together. Maybe it's a sail, I thought.
I couldn't check with the artist, El Anatsui, but I could check with the individual charged with writing the explanatory text on the wall, the Tate's artbolxer. "The first hanging on the ramp represents a majestic sail billowing out in the wind." Hurrah, correct.
But also "ships have transported people and goods around the world since ancient times", including "enslaved African people", many taken "to labour on sugar plantations that fuelled the alcohol industry", after which "spirits produced in the Caribbean would be shipped to Europe and from there to Western Africa", and for that reason the sail is made from bottle tops sourced in Nigeria. Well of course.
Apparently red bottle tops have been used to "form the outline of a red blood moon, as seen during a lunar eclipse", although I didn't see it at the time, I only noticed after I got home and enhanced my photos. This was particularly annoying because the title of the entire work turns out to be Behind The Red Moon and I missed that. Also that's not how lunar eclipses work, the sky isn't redder than the moon, but that's art for you.
According to the artbolx "elemental forces interweave with human histories of power, oppression, dispersal and survival". But seriously no, nobody is ever going to suss that from a curtain of bottle tops.
I thought the dangly mobile might be birds.
I was wrong. They're supposed to suggest "a loose grouping of human figures", and "the group of restless human forms might imply dispersion through migration". They didn't, but indeed they might.
More to the point, when viewed from a particular position on the bridge, "the fragmented shapes converge into the single circular form of the earth". Oh now that's clever, I totally missed that. And if you do stand in the right place, yes indeed they sort of do.
As for the conjecture that "when viewed together, the fragmentary circle gestures towards new formations of collective identities and experiences", I call that out as artbolx. If you ever need a properly meaningless phrase to drop into something you yourself are writing, I thoroughly recommend "gestures towards".
Which leaves the massive drape at the far end, a black sheet which reaches the floor and crumples into undulating lumps. I thought it might be an oil slick.
But no, it's waves at a wall. The artist likes walls because they have "a productive quality as an attempt to hide things", and this one is "rooted in the ancient story of the earthen wall of Notsie (present day Togo) built by King Agokoli to confine and oppress his subjects." You're never going to guess that just by looking at it.
Also "the use of black refers to the continent of Africa and its global diaspora", which is fair enough, but "charged with the potential of homecoming and return", which is less so. Also allegedly "as lines and waves of blackness meet, they echo the collision of global cultures and hybrid identities that Anatsui invites us to consider through the commission." Also "the past and present of Africa and Europe converge into symphonic sculptural forms that hang in the air and appear to float across the space."
If you'd made different life choices, you too could be paid for writing artbolx.
I quite liked El Anatsui's triptych, especially when I looked up close at the thousands of branded bottle tops and other metal fragments lovingly sewn together by what must have been an army of creators. The ingenious point-of-view thing where the dangly mobile coalesced together into the Earth was also a memorable moment.
But as the Turbine Hall commission goes it's not a must-see, more a good enough. Better than the soil, the sponge and the seeds, but not as good as the spiders, the sunshine or the slides. And free to visit until April.
