Masters of illusion will challenge your perception of sculpture at Hayward Gallery
![Installation view of ‘Space Shifters’ at Hayward Gallery, London](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/yzQkkciajCe22DrSPjpCdS-415-80.jpg)
Confused, wobbly, and – frankly – a little sick. When you leave the Hayward Gallery’s new show, your body might not feel quite right. Your feet have been on the ceiling and your head on the floor; you’ll have met strangers’ eyes in the mirror. Through 20 optically-oriented, sensory artworks your image will be turned upside down and inside out, reflected back, cut up and blacked out.
The artworks of ‘Space Shifters’ were made between 1960 and 2018 – a 50-year period that has seen vast changes in our landscape in every sense. Some of the artists were hippies interested in psychedelic effects, others are minimalists with pondering philosophical ideas about architecture and space. Yet despite the fact the surroundings, contexts and aims of each of these large-scale interventions may have been entirely different, they look remarkably united now – and in a world that feels the wrong way round, they provoke a familiar feeling of disorientation and imbalance.
‘To many of these artists, the viewer’s experience and the act of perception was more important than anything else,’ says Hayward Gallery senior curator Dr Cliff Lauson in an introduction to the exhibition. In Alicja Kwade’s WeltenLinie work (unveiled at the 2017 Venice Biennale) a series of illusory, steel sculptures, double-mirrors and stone-like objects, the artist confirms, what the viewers experience is a ‘phantasm rather than an object’.
WeltenLinie, 2017, by Alicja Kwade. © The artist. Courtesy of Hayward Gallery.
Some of the new works respond directly to the Hayward’s brutalist architecture, sculptural in form in itself: a new commission by the Spanish artist Daniel Steegmann Mangrané, is inspired by the London gallery’s iconic cast-concrete staircases; Leonor Antunes’ cascading masterpiece, discrepancies with A. (2018), which interacts with the new light-filled space in the renovated galleries, unveiled at the beginning of the year.
Other works challenge perceptions in other ways, such as Richard Wilson’s oil and mirror work, 20:50, first shown in 1987 at Matt’s Gallery, and now taking over the whole upper floor at the Hayward; or Yayoi Kusama’s scintillating, vertiginous Narcisscus Garden, a series of mirrored spheres scattered across the lower galleries glinting like fish scales. Seeing yourself differently also makes you see the world around you in an unexpected, topsy turvy way.
Of course, there’s another reason for this show, and at this time: it’s a clarion advocation for the IRL experience, in times where most people would rather scroll through exhibitions on their phone. It’s true that ‘Space Shifters’ can’t be seen on a screen – you’ll just have to get off the sofa and go. Just don’t expect to come back in one piece.
Installation view of ‘Space Shifters’ at Hayward Gallery, London. Courtesy of Hayward Gallery.
Installation view of ‘Space Shifters’ at Hayward Gallery, London. Courtesy of Hayward Gallery.
Installation view of ‘Space Shifters’ at Hayward Gallery, London. Courtesy of Hayward Gallery.
Installation view of 20_50, 1987, by Richard Wilson. © The artist. Courtesy of Hayward Gallery.
Installation view of ‘Space Shifters’ at Hayward Gallery, London. Courtesy of Hayward Gallery.
Installation view of Narcissus Garden, 1966, by Yayoi Kusama. © The artist. Courtesy of Hayward Gallery.
INFORMATION
‘Space Shifters’ is on view until 6 January 2019. For more information, visit the Southbank Centre website
ADDRESS
Hayward Gallery
Southbank Centre
337-338 Belvedere Road
London SE1 8XX
Wallpaper* Newsletter + Free Download
For a free digital copy of August Wallpaper*, celebrating Creative America, sign up today to receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories
Charlotte Jansen is a journalist and the author of two books on photography, Girl on Girl (2017) and Photography Now (2021). She is commissioning editor at Elephant magazine and has written on contemporary art and culture for The Guardian, the Financial Times, ELLE, the British Journal of Photography, Frieze and Artsy. Jansen is also presenter of Dior Talks podcast series, The Female Gaze.
-
‘Hedonistic and avant-garde’: Rabanne’s Julian Dossena on the legacy of the chainmail 1969 bag
Paco Rabanne’s 1969 chainmail handbag encapsulates the late designer’s futuristic, space-age style. Current creative director Julien Dossena tells Wallpaper* about the bag’s particular pleasures
By Jack Moss Published
-
Postcard from Paris: Olympic fever takes over the streets
On the eve of the opening ceremony of Paris 2024, our correspondent shares her views from the streets of the capital about how the event is impacting the urban landscape.
By Minako Norimatsu Published
-
The Mercury Prize nominees for 2024 have been revealed
Charli XCX, The Last Dinner Party and Beth Gibbons are amongst this year's nominees
By Charlotte Gunn Published
-
‘Mental health, motherhood and class’: Hannah Perry’s dynamic installation at Baltic
Hannah Perry's exhibition ’Manual Labour’ is on show at Baltic in Gateshead, UK, a five-part installation drawing parallels between motherhood and factory work
By Emily Steer Published
-
Francis Alÿs plots child play around the world at the Barbican
In Francis Alÿs' exhibition ‘Ricochets’ at London’s Barbican, the artist explores the universality of play, even in challenging situations
By Amah-Rose Abrams Published
-
At Glastonbury’s Shangri-La, activism and innovation meet
Glastonbury’s south-east corner is known for its after-dark entertainment but by day, there is a different story to tell
By Rhian Daly Published
-
‘I am almost an anti-sculptor’: Dominique White on her Whitechapel Max Mara Art Prize show
The artist mines the ocean to explore Afrofuturism in ‘Deadweight’, opening at London’s Whitechapel and detailed in a new film
By Amah-Rose Abrams Published
-
Remembering Rusty Egan's Blitz Club: a place to 'avoid the mob and the homophobes', where the New Romantics were born
As he releases new vinyl boxset, 'Blitzed!', Wallpaper* meets DJ Rusty Egan to talk about London's scene-building Blitz club – the antidote to the late 70s punk scene and a hot-bed of experimental fashion
By Craig McLean Published
-
Suzannah Pettigrew's 'tender and ghostly' new show at Surrealist photographer Lee Miller's former home in East Sussex
London-based artist Suzannah Pettigrew's photographic stills create a snapshot of her Sussex coast childhood, conjuring up a hallucinatory world of memory
By Mary Cleary Published
-
The body, pleasure and play: Beryl Cook and Tom of Finland united in London
Tom of Finland’s homoeroticism meets Beryl Cook’s female-oriented camp as Studio Voltaire unites work by the two artists in a London exhibition
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Harlem-born artist Tschabalala Self’s colourful ode to the landscape of her childhood
Tschabalala Self’s new show at Finland's Espoo Museum of Modern Art evokes memories of her upbringing, in vibrant multi-dimensional vignettes
By Millen Brown-Ewens Published