THE ART NEWSPAPER:Atmospheric underground arenas seem tailor-made for performance and video workThe Tanks at Tate Modern, which open to the public on Wednesday 18 July, were launched on Monday night with a party that continued until past midnight, complete with film-premier-style spotlights sweeping the guests as they arrived in London's power station turned modern and contemporary art museum.

The acoustics of the East Tank (Commission) and the South Tank (Live), two of three underground spaces where the oil that fuelled the power station was once stored, are remarkable. The spaces act as sound boxes, amplifying the hubbub created by the guests who were excited to explore the atmospheric spaces. They now seem tailor made for performance and video art.
When Nick Serota, the director of the Tate, first visited the redundant oil tanks in the mid-1990s access was down a steep ladder, he recalls. He describes them in the programme notes as "primal". But guests at last night's launch party for what the Tate calls the world's first museum galleries dedicated to performance art took, instead, a less stressful step-free route to the bunker-like spaces.
http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Tate+Modern+launches+the+rough%2c+raw+and+ready+Tanks/26924

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