Tate Modern needs top soil, and lots of it, so that the Mexican artist Abraham Cruzvillegas can create a large-scale installation with a horticultural element for the Turbine Hall.
The artist, who often uses found materials that are locally sourced in his assemblages, is creating the work for the Hyundai Commission, named after the Korean car maker, the new sponsor of the annual commission in the vast space. Cruzvillegas’s work is due to be unveiled in October.
A growing medium is the key component in the artist’s proposed work, we have learned, hence the Tate is asking those in charge of London’s parks from across the capital to donate a wheelbarrow or two of soil.
When the installation ends next May, the soil will be recycled. What grows in the meantime in the London clay and other soil types over the winter months will be a horticultural and artistic surprise.
In 2010, the artist Ai Weiwei carpetted theTurbine Hall with ceramic sunflower seeds for his Unilever Series piece, and in2003 Olafur Eliasson flooded the cavernous space with artificial sunlight forThe Weather Project.