Olafur Eliasson: Tate Blackouts Exhibition at Tate Modern: review

Inspired by that event, Eliasson decided to stage his blackouts in the Poetry and Dream section of Tate Modern’s permanent collection, which contains work by many of the artists in that famous show.

After batting off the security guard, I approach the entrance. Museums can be stuffy, formal places but, as other visitors arrive, tonight there is a mischievous, expectant mood — as though everyone is about to indulge in a midnight feast. I sense the same anarchic spirit that inspired three characters in Jean-Luc Godard’s 1964 film Bande à part to run pell-mell through the Louvre.

Inside the galleries, Little Sun lamps are placed at strategic points flicker like jack-o’-lanterns. Among the crowd, I notice several young couples on dates, as well as the Tate’s director, Nicholas Serota, strolling softly, wraithlike and unnoticed, among the shadows.

Looking at art by torchlight is a strange experience. Oddly enough, it almost suits certain works of art. Paintings such as Giorgio de Chirico’s The Uncertainty of the Poet (1913) or Paul Delvaux’s Sleeping Venus (1944) depict tenebrous dream-worlds whose mystery is enhanced when semi-illuminated by a torch. The phantasmagorical figures in Karel Appel’s Hip, Hip, Hoorah! (1949) pounce out of the gloom with added ferocity, like trick-or-treaters suddenly imbued with the malevolent qualities of monsters in a horror film.

Picasso’s Nude, Green Leaves and Bust (1932) appears especially voluptuous and forbidden – the pocked white bust more lunar than ever, the shadowy black profile encoded in the blue curtain at the back extra-sinister, like a rapist’s. Even Meredith Frampton’s icily precise portraits of young women gain a certain bewitching power in the half-light, like chilling apparitions.

Spend a night at a museum and you sense the primeval witchcraft inherent within strong works of art animated by their own autonomous spirit. “It must be a metaphor for understanding as well,” says my companion. “We can only shed a small amount of light on to things.” Before long, though, as people adjusted to their shadowy environment, they reverted to daytime behaviour. The hushed sense of magical possibility was replaced with mundane chatter. The witching hour hadn’t even struck yet, but the spell was sadly broken.

Saturdays until August 18 at Tate Modern; information: 020 7887 8888