In my disappointed
brain, this confirmed it’s brilliance even more and I bought a ticket for the
following weekend.
The exhibition
displays artist’s use of artificial light since it became a more popular art
form in 1960s. It says it ‘explores how we experience and psychologically
respond to illumination and colour’.
I always forget what a
good space the Hayward is, as soon as we walked in, we were mesmerised by the
darting movements of the 19,600 lights of Leo Villareal’s Cylinder II 19,600.
The movement is composed like a musical score, and every movement is unique. Further on was the playfully titled Ceal Floyer’s ‘Throw’ where a splatter of light appears to be thrown on
the floor.
A room was dedicated
to Anthony McCall’s light film Horizontal, You and I, where a video projector
and a mist machine beams evolving lines of light. The viewer is encouraged to
interact with the beams of light that appear tangible and solid. I missed the Anthony McCall solo exhibition recently so it was good to see this.
The exhibition
encourages playful interaction throughout and this feeling was exemplified when
we were asked to take our shoes off for Carlos Cruz-Diez’ Chromosaturation. The
artist believes ‘colour does not consist of pigment’ and floods 3 rooms with
monochorme projections of red, blue and green light. The immersive colour
disorientates your perception of the colour of objects and for some reason, just wearing your socks intesifies the strangeness.
Two hours later, we
emerged back into day-light, calmly and happily disorientated. ‘Light Show’ -
it’s even in the name - wasn’t pretending to be just a an art exhibition,
the medium of light stole the show and made it feel like a performance.
See it at The Hayward
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