LONDON — “Have you done the slides?” one office worker asks another. “No, have you?” the other responds. “I have to try them today.”
Slides are a hot topic of water-cooler conversation in London these days. And not just any slides, but five tubular spirals, one of which is so tall — more than 170 feet — that riders reach speeds of 30 mph.
The slides are the newest exhibit in the cavernous Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern museum, one of London’s most popular tourist attractions.
The unlikely exhibit is the brainchild of Carsten Holler, a German artist who argues that slides should be taken more seriously as a means of transport — and also as a way of fighting stress and depression. One of his creations, built for Italian designer Miuccia Prada, lets her travel from her top-floor office to her car in a matter of seconds.
Holler’s slides at the Tate are an unusual fusion of art and fun.
They fall from the second, third, fourth and fifth floors of the museum as a challenge to museum lovers to surrender their bodies to forces beyond their control. “It’s a playground for the body and the brain,” says Holler, 45. “It’s art, and it’s not art.”
Art critics have been gushing over the installation since it opened Oct. 10. Charlotte Higgins, arts correspondent for the Guardian newspaper, says the slides have transformed the museum into “a madcap playground for the next six months — and not just for children.”
“In those seconds of descent, you enter a science-fiction fantasy,” she wrote. “Or feel what it might be like to spin down Alice’s rabbit hole.”
Made from 18 tons of stainless steel and glass, the slides are seriously scary. Riders are even stuffed into canvas sacks so they can’t use their feet as a brake.
Although there are some height restrictions, there are no age restrictions. One day recently, a 6-year-old girl emerged so shaken up she burst into a flood of tears. But most people seemed to be having the time of their lives, smiling all the way through the 15- to 20-second ride and losing themselves completely before being spat out onto a long mat.
Although the slides are partly enclosed for safety, onlookers can see the riders through the glass. “People coming down the slides have a particular expression on their faces. They’re affected and to some degree changed,” Holler says. “I’d like to suggest that using slides on an everyday basis could change us.
“The state of mind that you enter when sliding — of simultaneous delight, madness and voluptuous panic — can’t simply disappear without a trace afterwards.”
Visitors to the gallery are issued timed free tickets for rides on three of the slides, while rides on the two smaller slides are offered on a first-come, first-served basis. On a recent Saturday, visitors were standing in line for 30 minutes at 2 p.m. to get a ticket for a 6 p.m. ride on the largest slide.
Although the rides will be offered through April 9, the exhibit has been packed every day since it opened, with local office workers joining the tourists at lunchtime.
The slides are so popular there have been calls for the exhibit to become a permanent structure on the banks of the Thames. The nearby London Eye observation wheel was originally designed to be a temporary structure but is now one of London’s most visited tourist attractions.
