The secret life of statues

Until Feb 10 2002, Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, Bankside SE1, Sun to Thu 10am to 6pm, Fri and Sat 10am to 10pm, free.

Tel: 020 7887 8008
www.tate.org.uk
Tube: Southwark/Blackfriars

Spanish artist Juan Muñoz creates strangely ambivalent, private dramas in which human figures, usually grouped, are situated as if captured in snapshots of either highly animated hilarity, anxiety, or both. These at once amusing and unsettling grey figures, made of fibre-glass but looking as if they have been carved out of granite or even perhaps petrified in mid-gesture by the lava of an active volcano, evoke delight, pathos and unease in equal measure.

As part of the Unilever Series, Muñoz has created an installation in two parts. Double Blind suggests Bankside's past as an industrial space. As you descend the great slope of Tate Modern, you are confronted by an environment that suggests a cross between an empty film noir set and a murky, subterranean car park. At first, there is nothing to see. However, square pools of light overhead suggest there might be some small, unexpected drama about to occur. Looking up, you notice a ceiling has been created to divide the Turbine Hall into two floors. Secreted in the corners of each carved-out shaft, from which the pools of light appear, you'll find Muñoz's miniaturised figures playing out their intriguing scenarios.

Upstairs, for the second part of the work, a patterned floor appears to be pierced with black shafts, some of which are illusions. Through two of these shafts, two elevators rise and descend.

Cleverly exploring architectural space, perspective and illusion through an intense meditation on human dynamics, this is a quiet, yet monumental work.