I recently visited London and enjoyed seeing ‘When Forms Come Alive’ at the Hayward Gallery.
There were some terrific installations, some of them dramatically large-scale and inventively using a range of materials.
I was intrigued by the installation. ‘Mylar’. It was made using thousands of flat, reflective discs of Mylar (a metallic plastic film), which have been folded, hot-glued and arranged into spheres of varying sizes. Together, they form a gigantic structure that appears to mimic the growth patterns of a biological or molecular structure. The artist Tara Donavan (New York) thinks of ‘light’ as an additional material, which, of course, it is. An essential element when viewing art. I’ve not thought of it that way before. It’s useful.
This next piece, ‘Pumping’ by Eva Fabregas (Barcelona), also intrigued – by using sound to engage a viewer. A trio of massive inflatables crawls across the exhibition space. Made from stretched fabric and inflated balls, these pulsating forms appear distinctly intestinal. The bass-heavy soundtrack, subsonic frequencies, and elastic rhythms, which the artist intends the observer to feel and not just hear, are present.
