Cracking the Tate

For nearly as long as there has been art, there have been technicians in the background who enabled the artist to realize her creative vision—from those who prepared paint to those who quarried marble, made canvas, built galleries, and constructed museums. The size and scope of contemporary art, however, have made these technical specialists even more critical to the creative process—and more of a part of it. In this episode of the Harvard Horizons podcast, PhD student Hannah Cohen sheds light on the work of these craftspeople through a look at one of the century's most arresting works of art: Shibboleth, an installation that involved cracking the foundation of London's massive Tate Modern museum.