Saturday 31 May 2008

HOT: Psycho Buildings, Hayward Gallery

Huy doesn't think that installations are art, but even he might be swayed by the structures in this exhibition, all framed around the intersection of art and architecture. Every work is designed to be explored in a different way - on the bottom floor you start off sniffing pepper and cloves suspended from pendulous lycra stockings (Life Fog Frog...Fog Frog), scramble through a jagged metal tunnel reminiscent of Daniel Libeskind's Jewish Museum in Berlin (Life Tunnel), circle around an exploded room, suspended in time and space (Show Room) and admire the minute details of Fallen Star, a dramatic physical embodiment of the artist's cultural dislocation. Your entry to the upper galleries is a disaster area of destruction (To the Memory of H.P. Lovecraft), which leads to an ethereal floating staircase rising up to nowhere (Staircase - V), a plastic bubble where you can watch someone moving about as if suspended on a cloud (Observatory), and the best fun - rowing across the skyline of Southbank (Normally, Proceeding and Unrestricted With Without Title).

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