No Soul For Sale

Tate Modern is celebrating its 10th birthday with a weekend-long eclectic festival in the shape of No Soul For Sale: A Festival of Independents, which will take place in Turbine Hall mid-May.  Originally devised by X Initiative, the event had its first airing in June last year at the former Dia Art Foundation headquarters in New York, with 40 independent international arts collectives and not-for-profit organisations taking part.

Inspired by Lars von Trier's Dogville, the event will focus on creating a collaborative, communal, anti-commercial art fair atmosphere where performance, film, music, installation and who knows what else can be watched and talked about, with Tate Modern staying open until midnight on Friday and Saturday to accommodate all the activities.

Visitors at NY's No Soul For Sale opening night will have seen Mexican City-based artist Martin Soto Climent construct a beer can sculpture Impulsive Chorus (pictured above) from 1000 beer cans, kildly emptied and donated by the public throughout the night.

More than 50 organisations/collectives have been invited to take part, including White Columns (New York), Kling and Bang Gallery (Reykjavik), Y3K (Melbourne) and e-flux (Berlin), as well as London-based organisations like Museum of Everything, Auto Italia and no.w.here.

Also, if you visit the gallery on May 12th you may see several hundred cake-carrying school children mildly fatigued from a walk from Borough Market to Tate Modern in honour of its birthday.  So grab yourself some cake and a birthday sing-song if you have the chance.

Curated by Maurizio Cattelan, Cecilia Alemani, Massimiliano Gioni and Tate Modern, No Soul For Sale is on at Turbine Hall, Tate Modern from 14th-16th May 2010.