The floor of the gallery's vast Turbine Hall has been carpeted with 100 million porcelain seeds in a new installation by the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. Visitors are encouraged to pick them up and crunch them underfoot for an interactive art experience.
However, Tate bosses have issued a stern warning after visitors on launch day said they were fighting the urge to take home a seed as a memento - raising the possibility that the 1,000sq metre work could be significantly smaller before the year is out.
"We are encouraging people to walk on them - but certainly not to take them," said Juliet Bingham, the curator.
The artist himself appeared tickled by the notion of his work spreading across the world via the pockets of visitors. But he said: "For the museum's part, the argument is very clear. This is a total work and we want people to see the full effect of 100 million seeds."
He was more worried about somebody mistaking them for the real thing. "People might also like to eat them. That's a safety issue. They might try to sue the Tate for that."
The installation is the latest in the Unilever Series. Previous works include Carsten Holler's giant slides and Olafur Eliasson's fake sun.
MAS INFO SOBRE LA EXHIBICION :::
The Turbine Hall at Tate Modern has been carpeted with more than 100 million "sunflower seeds" - the latest commission in the gallery's popular Unilever Series. Visitors will be able to walk on and touch the seeds - the brainchild of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei - which are in fact made of porcelain. Each imitation seed husk was individually handcrafted by skilled artisans and now covers 1,000 square metres of the London gallery's Turbine Hall. The ceramic seeds were moulded, fired at soaring temperatures, hand-painted and then fired again over the course of two years.
Sunflower seeds are a popular Chinese street snack but also hold another meaning for the artist, a political dissident in China. During the Cultural Revolution, propaganda images showed Chairman Mao as the sun and the mass of people as sunflowers turning towards him.
Chief curator Sheena Wagstaff said of the new work: "It's a beautifully simple idea that belies an extraordinary rich layer of meanings and references." Curator Juliet Bingham added: "To touch one seed is to touch the whole. It's a poignant commentary on the relationships between individuals and the masses."
More than 150 tonnes of seeds have been used for the 10cm (4in) deep, "extremely costly" installation produced by 1,600 people in China. The seeds were made over a process of 20 to 30 steps in the city of Jingdezhen, which is renowned for its production of imperial porcelain. Ai Weiwei said: "I made three or four seeds. I couldn't really make them. They picked them out and threw them away saying 'It looks so bad... It's no good'" At the end of the show all the seeds will be returned to the artist's studio in Beijing, as long as they have not broken under the weight of visitors' feet. Asked what he would do with the seeds afterwards, he joked: "I'll try to cook with them. Maybe some new product will come out." He said the artisans were surprised to have been asked to make the seeds, saying: "They are used to making practical objects" and that if he had explained the end result "nobody would believe it".
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