Invisible-Hayward Gallery

Well the South Bank Center really has pulled out all the stops for the Festival of the World, and it has made a real blockbuster of a show with Invisible: Art About the Unseen 1957-2012. The show starts with some of the most influential artists of all time with works such as Yves Klein, famously known for his Klein Blue, and looks further with work by Yoko Ono and Andy Warhol. 

The Utopian ideals of the invisible art, the invisible architecture, whereby mankind had forgone secrecy and developed into a free forming world. The first room seems to take an almost chronological step through from 1957 where Klein presented an empty space (The Specialization of Sensibility in the Raw Material State into Stabilized Pictorial Sensibility, The Void) as an art work which up to 3000 people queued to view; however, I am not hear to give you a history lesson. What I will tell you is that this is possibly the best exhibition of the year so far in my opinion, each room and stage holds a genuine interest. My personal favorite is Lai Chih-Sheng's Life Size Drawing. This is a tracing of every line in the room, so the work is literally the largest possible work that could fit in the room, without having any real physical material presence. This work kind of goes under the radar until you see the label on the wall, and then you begin to notice, you begin to realise you are standing in the middle of a huge drawing, a piece of work that is so big, yet it has no imposing influence on us. 

In all i would definitely recommend this one, a few tips though; first, if you have attended the Wide Open School (if you haven't you should!!) take your ticket along for reduced entry to the show; and second, if you can get the show handbook, its really good, a great read.

In Short:- 5/5 Best show of the year so far, a great variety of work ranging over the past 55 years of invisible art. 

Damien Hirst- The Retrospective

Billed as the summer blockbuster for this year i was both excited and a little apprehensive upon arrival, it would have been worse were it not for the fact i skipped the queue with my Tate membership card; however, I was knocked back at how well the Tate had dealt with this show. Work ranging from throughout his career, starting at work as he left Goldsmiths in the late 80s and moving on through to the present day. Unlike the Kusama show there were several real center pieces for the show, in fact you could almost say it about all the pieces and each of them has had either their own piece of controversy or large media coverage. 

If you enter from the West entrance as I do usually you are greeted by two things, one, a very large queue (so either book in advance for a much smaller line or get a membership) and two, the ever present amazing turbine hall, which you might have thought to be filled with perhaps work such as The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living 1991, but no instead at the very bottom end of the hall there is a black box. Before you start queueing at the rear of the box you walk pas this image,

Now for many of you this will conjure up a familiar image such as the one on my previous blog post; however, upon entry and seeing it, For the Love of God 2007, in real life, it is instantly something special. What hit me most was the scale of it, in most images it looks huge, but in reality a human head isn't actually that large. The jewel on the forehead and the way it is presented in a dark room with spot lights makes it feel extraterrestrial, alien, the jewel an all seeing third eye, the eye of god perhaps. It is a little unnerving especially in the environment that you see it, a small group with security, not invigilators, watching and monitoring you in a room filled with the sparkle off the piece. 

If we move now to the main body of the work upstairs on level 3, it would take an age to go through each piece, all works that have been analysed time after time. Anyone who knows any of Hirst's work will understand the underlying theme of death throughout, and the almost contradictory nature of the way as questions are asked they are almost instantly denied by the work. The butterfly plays wonderfully with these themes the butterflies are simultaneously hatching from the lava on the canvases as other expire or live out their lives through this room that we as viewers can walk through. One is not allowed to take pictures throughout the show; however, I took a few snaps just to give you guys a quick preview. 

Another interesting part to the exhibition is the exit to the shop where there are many of Hirst's works for sale, smaller prints and editions all at more affordable (but still out of most of our price range) prices. It says two things to me first is that maybe there is a lot of truth in the rumors surrounding the value of his work and two, perhaps he wants a wider audience to his work, giving us all a chance to own a bit of art?

In Short:- 5/5 Great retrospective showing some of the most important pieces of art over the past 25 years.

The Inception of Line- Coldharbour Studios

Coldharbour Studios is an innovative space in south London which works not only as a gallery but also houses many artists in the studios above. The latest show The Inception of Line shows creative and effective curating from Arethra Campbell, with Kate Terry's site specific thread installations cutting and reworking the architecture of the white cube space, bringing a new perspective to the work on the walls, the pieces of Keke Vilabelda.

The press release says "The work of art exists within a trajectory or line, marking a point of communication between viewer and work that refuses to repeat itself. Both Vilabelda and Terry's practices highlight this line, never reaching a point of stasis; rather they are constantly re-aligned and re-configured within the spaces they temporarily inhabit." and i would be inclined to agree. 

The show physically impacts you as well as visually as one has to rethink the space constantly looking out for Terry's work which slices through your path at unexpected moments. Vilabelda's paintings, if you will, have a certain eeriness to them as dreamlike landscapes and structures are intersected by this imaginary frames and formulations.

You will be able to see the green thread of Terry's installation if you look closely

In Short:- 5/5 Great young space with loads of potential with a great team behind it.