Hell's Half Acre

For the 2010 Frieze Art Fair, Steve Lazarides (the man who made Banksy a household name) has created visions of hell in the tunnels underneath Waterloo station. 

Earlier this year Lazarides issued 15 of his protégés with a copy of Dante’s Inferno and the promise of a darkened nook somewhere in the maze of railway tunnels running underneath Waterloo. The resulting installation, Hell’s Half Acre, will run for one week only, a mildewed alternative to the air-conditioned marquees full of high-rollers in Regent’s Park. “It’s certainly going to be something different from Frieze,” says Lazarides, looking thoughtfully at a menacing shop dummy wearing a gas mask. “The only reason I didn’t do it last year was because I felt it was the wrong time to be poking fun at the art fairs. It was pretty grim. This year I thought, it’s time to play again.

The Independent