ED ATKINS at the TATE BRITAIN on Monday the 2nd of June 2025

 ED ATKINS at the TATE BRITAIN on Monday the 2nd of June 2025

Ed Atkins, Unititled, 2018
 

The Tate’s new exhibition showcases the work of video artist Ed Atkins (1982 -).  His work Hisser depicts a real-world incident in the US, when a man was swallowed up by a sinkhole, disappearing inexplicably and entirely.  Hisser seeks to enact the last day or days of this anonymous man’s life, as he sleeps, sings, ruminates, observes Rorschach blots to a cracked recording of Elton John and Kiki Dee singing “Don’t go breaking my heart”.  Ultimately, the protagonist masturbates vigorously into a sink before the cataclysmic swallowing occurs.  Perhaps Hisser is a warning against isolation or onanism, or a meditation on the arbitrariness of existence itself.  The works coherence and poignant beat makes it notable.

Ed Atkins, refuse.exe, 2019

In Atkin’s video installation Good Food characters clad in medieval or fantasy garb weep uncontrollably yet say nothing.  Four or five differing yet thematically connected videos are surrounded by racks of costumes (originally bought from Deutsche Oper in Berlin by Atkins, the artists present home).  The works reference the vapidity of CGI as it struggles to evoke worlds beyond its own technical virtuosity, suggesting, for Atkins, an essential human melancholia.  In another part of this installation, a sandwich constituted of ham, salad, baby’s bodies, naked people and human faces resembling slices of ham, all smothered in ketchup or mustard and topped with a bun, brioche or slice of bread.  The grotesque is never far away, and Atkins makes a fetish of this tendency.  AI is also evoked in the form of excruciating lists made by, among others, Antonin Artaud, extended infinitely using GPT3. 

Ed Atkins, Death Mask II The Scent, 2010

Family is always a reference point for Atkins, from his first video installation which evokes his father’s death from cancer as a catalyst for his art.  A later video installation called The Worm, completed during the pandemic, records a call made to the artist’s mother from a hotel bedroom in Berlin.  In his work Children (2020-) Atkins presents the post it notes decorated with his art or simple messages given to his daughter during the pandemic.  These often have the effect of a talisman, warding of the evils of the outside, exuding inner warmth.

Ed Atkins, The Worm, 2021

In Voila la Verite Atkins references a 1926 French silent movie, Menilmontant directed by Dimitri Kirsanoff, the film that critic Pauline Kael called her favourite of all time.  A sequence from the film is colorised, retouched and given a soundtrack.  The title of the piece (This is the truth) is taken from a newspaper article visible in the sequence.  A girl, clearly very upset, sits on a park bench beside an old man, sharing his lunch of salami while weeping.  This fake restoration is at once heartfelt and heartless, implying vapidity yet demanding an authentic emotional response too.

Ed Atkins, Children, 2020 - ongoing

 The final work is entitled Nurses Come and Go but None for Me.  The actor Toby Jones reads Atkin’s father’s account of his final battle with cancer, during the last six months of his life.  The poignant and moving monologue is adeptly read by Jones to a gathering of young students.  Although the work is static, it is compulsive viewing, detailing an end-of-life struggle as symptoms and pains multiply. 

Ed Atkins, Hisser, 2015

The artist has clearly refused to adopt a more compelling, snazzy showbiz moniker, a decision which clearly has both positive and negative consequences, but at least the artist is who he says he is, yet another hollow postmodern conundrum.  Born in England he now lives and works in Berlin.  His work is comically surreal, bleak yet hilarious, he interrogates cliches like sinkholes, the fake world of CGI, ancient silent movies that still reach out to the heart, even Chat GPT, to uncover even more hollowness and emptiness at the heart of so-called civilisation.

Ed Atkins, Copenhagen #6, 2023


Paul Murphy, Tate Britain, June 2025

Ed Atkins, Children, 2020-ongoing


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