Over the years, we've seen some electrifying works of art in the Unilever series of commissions for Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, but none has been stranger or more profound than the work that was unveiled yesterday, Colombian artist Doris Salcedo's Shibboleth.
"Unveiled" is not quite the right word, because Shibboleth isn't a thing but a non-thing a fissure that starts as a hairline crack at the top of the ramp near the west entrance of the hall and zigzags 167 metres down to the far end, gradually widening and deepening as it runs, creating smaller and more superficial cracks along the way.
It is as though the foundations of the whole building have been shaken by an earthquake, so that by implication the vast space we are standing in is fundamentally unsafe. When you peer down to look deep into the void, you see that the sides of the interior are covered with wire mesh of the kind that is used to seal off borders and control crowds.
Visually, Salcedo uses negative space to undermine, and so make us aware of, the scale and monumentality of the former power station. Look down from the mezzanine level to the floor of the Turbine Hall, and it is easy to imagine that you are looking at a landscape perhaps a view of a great river snaking its way to the sea.
Metaphorically, the meaning of the piece is surprisingly specific. Salcedo has said that the crack and the wire mesh refer to the evil of racism, the divide between the black and white halves of humanity that, in time, only gets deeper and wider and will, at the end, bring the whole building down.
The word shibboleth comes from the Bible, where it refers to a word that only those of your own tribe could pronounce proof that you belong. A shibboleth is a test of authenticity, a means to separate friend from foe.
Now I know what you are going to ask. Did the artist really take a jackhammer to the concrete floor of the Turbine Hall? Or are we looking at a sculpture, something she made and installed in Tate Modern like any other work of art shown there?
Salcedo adamantly refuses to reveal the answer, and I know why. With part of your mind, you completely accept the reality of the cracked floor, but, with the other, rational part, you wonder whether what your eyes see can possibly be true. The effect is disconcerting because you find yourself trapped between knowing and not knowing.
After I left the hall, Shibboleth rattled around in my head all day, and it haunts me still. When I ask myself why, I realise it is because it looks like a wound, a gash that can't heal. It offers no hope, leaving you feeling as empty as the abyss it opens up beneath your feet.
'Shibboleth' is at Tate Modern, London SE1 (020 7887 8888), until April 6
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