With its reassuring sounds, smells and textures, getting into ‘When Varieties Come Alive: Sixty Years of Stressed Sculpture’ on the Hayward Gallery, London, is nearly like slipping again in utero. Sensation is the star right here, with an eclectic roster of rising and established artists experimenting with fertile kinds and sometimes viscous, spiky or stretchy materials for a deliciously multisensory group present.
‘When Varieties Come Alive’ at Hayward Gallery
Tara Donovan, set up view
(Picture credit score: Set up view of When Varieties Come Alive (7 February — 6 Might 2024). Photo_ Jo Underhill. Courtesy the Hayward Gallery)
Twenty-one artists have explored the probabilities of motion – the total roster contains Lynda Benglis (winner of a 2024 Wallpaper* Design Award for her Loewe jewelry), Drift, Franz West, Eva Fàbregas, Ruth Asawa, Nairy Baghramian, Phyllida Barlow, Michel Blazy, Paloma Bosquê, Olaf Brzeski, Choi Jeonghwa, Tara Donovan, Holly Hendry, EJ Hill, Marguerite Humeau, Jean-Luc Moulène, Senga Nengudi, Ernesto Neto, Martin Puryear, Matthew Ronay and Teresa Photo voltaic Abboud.
Holly Hendry, set up view
(Picture credit score: Set up view of When Varieties Come Alive (7 February — 6 Might 2024). Photo_ Jo Underhill. Courtesy the Hayward Gallery)
Works seize the unthinking instincts of an organism, showing to undulate, breathe, float, ooze and squidge across the architectural angles of the Hayward. Not like most exhibitions, guests can take a free route, reasonably than following a prescribed one-way system; right here, the gallery’s scattered areas lend themselves to the offbeat works of the person artists. With the sheer dimension of a few of the items, there was a danger of encroachment on one other work, a hazard effectively sidestepped in Ralph Rugoff’s curation, aided by assistant curator Katie Guggenheim and curatorial assistant Anusha Mistry.
Michel Blazy, set up view
(Picture credit score: Set up view of When Varieties Come Alive (7 February — 6 Might 2024). Photo_ Jo Underhill. Courtesy the Hayward Gallery)
Works are otherworldly kinds, inhabiting their very own dystopian universe. Eva Fàbregas’ tubular pink beings writhe round their very own pink-lit room. Tara Donovan’s epic, huge molecular constructions could possibly be a joyful pile of glitter balls or marine lifeforms, an eloquent argument for the fluid nature of sculpture.
Elsewhere, Holly Hendry’s pipes are snaking their means out the window, whereas Lynda Benglis’ viscid kinds emphasise supplies’ ephemeral nature. Drift’s stunning kinetic Skylights flutter open, greeting guests; EJ Hill, too, displays this movement in a large-scale rollercoaster sculpture, making for a smorgasbord of sensation.
‘When Varieties Come Alive: Sixty Years of Stressed Sculpture’, from 7 February – 6 Might 2024 on the Hayward Gallery
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Lynda Benglis, set up view
(Picture credit score: Set up view of When Varieties Come Alive (7 February — 6 Might 2024). Photo_ Jo Underhill. Courtesy the Hayward Gallery)
Supply: Wallpaper
