Until 6 January 2019
Hayward Gallery
Southbank Centre
337-338 Belvedere Road
London SE1 8XX
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This major group exhibition brings together sculptures and installations that explore perception and space.
Featuring 20 artists and spanning a period of roughly 50 years, the exhibition includes innovative, minimalist sculpture from the 1960s as well as recent works that extend the legacy of this ‘optical’ minimalism in different ways. It also features new commissions that have been made in response to the architecture of the Hayward Gallery.
Many of the artworks in this exhibition are constructed from translucent materials such as glass, acrylic and polyester resins. Others involve the use of reflective materials, including stainless steel, polished bronze and, in one case, engine oil. Luscious and seductive – and often demonstrating huge technical accomplishment – these objects act as optical devices that enable us to see our surroundings in new and unexpected ways. In bringing together artworks that activate our perception of Hayward’s unique building, Space Shifters provides a dramatic and fitting conclusion to the gallery’s 50th anniversary year.
Featured Artists
Leonor Antunes, Larry Bell, Fred Eversley, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Jeppe Hein, Roni Horn, Robert Irwin, Ann Veronica Janssens, Anish Kapoor, Yayoi Kusama, Alicja Kwade, John McCracken, Josiah McElheny, Helen Pashgian, Charlotte Posenenske, Fred Sandback, Monika Sosnowska, Daniel Steegmann Mangrané, De Wain Valentine and Richard Wilson.
Alicja Kwade
Alicja Kwade’s sculptural installations, objects and films illustrate or attempt to give material form to abstract philosophical questions and scientific principles. Addressing the relationship between reality and illusion, they ask us to think about what we know and how we know it.
In her large-scale installation WeltenLinie (2017) – which in Space Shifters takes over almost the entirety of one of Hayward’s lower galleries – nothing is quite what it seems. Using double-sided mirrors and carefully placed, paired objects, the artist achieves the illusion of sudden and surprising material transformations. As we move around and through Kwade’s steel-framed structure, the way we read and understand the objects within it shifts dramatically, depending on our perspective. Speaking of WeltenLinie, the artist has said ‘I hope that it is more like a feeling or an experience than a solid sculpture’, more like a ‘phantasm rather than an object’.
Monika Sosnowska & Alicja Kwade at Hayward Gallery
