Highly recommended. It’s on at The Hayward Gallery until the 19th August. Go and stand on the roof and look out for the 31 life-sized figures that scatter the skyline of London, on rooftops and pavements and bridges. The view is stunning and it is strangely exhilerating to be scanning the horizon, picking out sculptures that appear to be looking at or for you.
Then go back inside and make sure you venture into the “Blind Light” installation. It is a glass box filled with what looks and feels like cloud. How does a cloud feel? I hear you say. It feels moist and damp and a little bit cold. I know this because I used to live on The Peak in Hong Kong and we lived in a cloud most of the year round. You wander in and immediately become disorientated because you can’t see a bloody thing. Anthony Gormley says “here light itself is the opposite of illuminating. The blinding light is part of an experience of disorientation. Adrift in the void, we are made more conscious of our own body space and the atmosphere is cold and wet, as though the weather we build shelters against has been brought indoors. I say “what a load of old bollocks, but go in anyway because it’s really good fun. The kids will love it”.
June 18th, 2007 at 2:41 am
Perhaps I should visit when I’m staying with daughter number two for the weekend in a couple of weeks? I haven’t been to London since flying into Heathrow last December. I do attend the ocassional annual lecture or two there.
June 19th, 2007 at 11:39 am
Found the cloud experience story very interesting, especially the bit where you describe the real experience you had in Hong Kong. The language was beautiful, as usual. Yesterday a student I am tutoring had to come up with a poem about a cloud – guess where I took my inspired musings from?