R
Rom Levy
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Tarek Atoui has brought a landscape of instruments, sculptural objects and sound to Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall. His new Hyundai Commission, Hold, opened on 13 October 2026 and continues until 11 April 2027, creating a setting that develops through listening and live performance.
The installation gives the hall a different rhythm. Suspended forms sit at different heights, with open space between them and paths through the work. In the installation photographs, visitors provide a sense of scale without being dwarfed by one central object. The eye moves between individual elements, much as a listener might move between separate sounds.
Photo: Yili Liu © Tate Photography.
Atoui’s practice connects the design of instruments with the conditions in which sound is made and shared. Hold draws on more than two decades of research and exchange with musicians, instrument makers, engineers and researchers across Asia and Europe. Wind and percussion instruments sit alongside objects that resist an immediate, familiar classification.
That uncertainty is part of their visual pull. Circular skins, hanging structures and lengths of bamboo offer different textures and proportions. Their supports remain visible, giving the installation the feel of something assembled for use. It is possible to look at each element as a sculpture, then reconsider it as an object waiting to be activated.
Photo: Yili Liu © Tate Photography.
The project brings older instrument traditions into contact with electronic technologies. It also takes account of the place where those instruments sound: the Turbine Hall’s volume and acoustics are part of the work’s conditions. Live performances extend the installation over time, making a return visit a different proposition from looking again at a fixed arrangement.
The photographs cannot deliver that changing sound, but they show the care given to distance. Some objects hang near the body, while others stretch above it. Warm, translucent surfaces punctuate a more restrained field of grey and pale materials. The space between the instruments feels as considered as the instruments themselves.
Photo: Yili Liu © Tate Photography.
For readers following art beyond the conventional picture or object, Hold offers a reason to slow down. Its subject is partly the act of gathering: people occupying the same space, encountering the same instruments and hearing them from different positions.
Tarek Atoui: Hold is at Tate Modern, London, through 11 April 2027. Check the artist’s programme for performance updates. For more on places shaped by listening, explore Notes in Repose and the sounds of the café.
Photo: Yili Liu © Tate Photography.
The installation gives the hall a different rhythm. Suspended forms sit at different heights, with open space between them and paths through the work. In the installation photographs, visitors provide a sense of scale without being dwarfed by one central object. The eye moves between individual elements, much as a listener might move between separate sounds.
Photo: Yili Liu © Tate Photography.
Instruments as sculptures
Atoui’s practice connects the design of instruments with the conditions in which sound is made and shared. Hold draws on more than two decades of research and exchange with musicians, instrument makers, engineers and researchers across Asia and Europe. Wind and percussion instruments sit alongside objects that resist an immediate, familiar classification.
That uncertainty is part of their visual pull. Circular skins, hanging structures and lengths of bamboo offer different textures and proportions. Their supports remain visible, giving the installation the feel of something assembled for use. It is possible to look at each element as a sculpture, then reconsider it as an object waiting to be activated.
Photo: Yili Liu © Tate Photography.
The project brings older instrument traditions into contact with electronic technologies. It also takes account of the place where those instruments sound: the Turbine Hall’s volume and acoustics are part of the work’s conditions. Live performances extend the installation over time, making a return visit a different proposition from looking again at a fixed arrangement.
The photographs cannot deliver that changing sound, but they show the care given to distance. Some objects hang near the body, while others stretch above it. Warm, translucent surfaces punctuate a more restrained field of grey and pale materials. The space between the instruments feels as considered as the instruments themselves.
Photo: Yili Liu © Tate Photography.
For readers following art beyond the conventional picture or object, Hold offers a reason to slow down. Its subject is partly the act of gathering: people occupying the same space, encountering the same instruments and hearing them from different positions.
Tarek Atoui: Hold is at Tate Modern, London, through 11 April 2027. Check the artist’s programme for performance updates. For more on places shaped by listening, explore Notes in Repose and the sounds of the café.
Photo: Yili Liu © Tate Photography.