Psycho Buildings, an exhibition of architectural environments designed by artists, has opened at The Hayward gallery in London. Above: Atelier Bow-Wow, Life Tunnel, 2008. Steel plate. Courtesy Atelier Bow-Wow. Photo: © Stephen White
Above: Gelitin, normally, proceeding and unrestricted with without title, 2008, Mixed media. Courtesy the artists. Photo: © Stephen White
Above: Rachel Whiteread, Place (Village), 2006–08, Mixed media: doll’s houses, crates, boxes, wood, electrical fittings and fixtures, electricity. Courtesy Rachel Whiteread. Photo: Stephen White
Above: Do Ho Suh, Fallen Star 1/5, 2008. ABS, basswood, beech, ceramic, enamel paint, glass, honeycomb board, laquer paint, latex paint, LED lights, pinewood, plywood, resin, spruce, styrene, polycarbonate sheets, PVC sheets. Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York. Photo: © Stephen White
Above: Do Ho Suh, Staircase – V, 2003/04/08. Polyester and stainless steel tubes. Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York. Photo: © Stephen White
Above: Michael Beutler, Sandwiches, dobbels and burgers, 2008. Paper and mesh. Courtesy the artist and Galerie Christian Nagel. Photo: © Stephen White
Above: Los Carpinteros, Show Room, 2008, Cinder blocks, fishing nylon, Ikea and B&Q furniture. Courtesy Sean Kelly Gallery, New York. Photo: Stephen White
Above: Mike Nelson, To the Memory of H.P. Lovecraft, 1999, 2008. Mixed media. Courtesy the artist, Matt’s Gallery, London and Galleria Franco Noero, Torino. Photo: © Stephen White
Info from the gallery follows:
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27 May 2008
PSYCHO BUILDINGS
Artists take on Architecture
Sponsored by Bloomberg
28 May – 25 August 2008
The Hayward
As the highlight of The Hayward’s 40th anniversary season, ten artists from around the world have transformed the entire gallery in PSYCHO BUILDINGS.
The Hayward’s huge spaces have been filled with artist-designed architectural environments, which spill onto the three outdoor sculpture terraces, radically altering the interior and exterior of the gallery. Inside a village made from over 200 dollhouses and a room frozen in a moment of explosive disaster are amongst the installations that both enchant and disconcert visitors. Outside on the Gallery’s sculpture terraces, installations including a boating lake, a transparent dome and a working cinema have altered the exterior face of The Hayward. Visible from the surrounding area and across the Thames and illuminated by night, they add a significant public dimension to this major exhibition.
The ten artists are: Atelier Bow-Wow (Japan), Michael Beutler (Germany), Los Carpinteros (Cuba), Gelitin (Austria), Mike Nelson (UK), Ernesto Neto (Brazil), Tobias Putrih (Slovenia), Tomas Saraceno (Argentina), Do Ho Suh (Korea), Rachel Whiteread (UK).
Borrowing its title from a book by the artist Martin Kippenberger, the exhibition brings together the work of artists who create habitat-like structures and architectural spaces that are mental and perceptual spaces as much as physical ones. The exhibition invites visitors to immerse themselves in a series of eleven atmospheric, enthralling and unsettling installations. Combining architectural and artistic design with the use of light, colour and smell to trigger responses, these dynamic constructions actively encourage viewers to become adventurous participants. The scale and ambition of the exhibition meant the artists spent weeks working in the gallery in order to realise their installations.
The exhibition has been curated by Ralph Rugoff, Director of The Hayward, in collaboration with the artists.
Atelier Bow-Wow is a Tokyo-based architectural studio established in 1992 by Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and Momoyo Kaijima. For the exhibition they have constructed a multi-faceted structure Life Tunnel (2008). Made from steel plate sections bolted together, the structure forms a tunnel, which snakes from one gallery to another.
At the centre of the passageway visitors can look up a vertical shaft up to the upper floor, parallel to the concrete staircase. Lit from above, the shaft illuminates visitors and the tunnel below.
German artist Michael Beutler has used his own bespoke machinery to transform hundreds of sheets of brightly coloured tissue paper on wire mesh into giant shapes to create a forest-like environment for visitors to wander through.
The Austrian collective Gelitin (Wolfgang Gantner, Ali Janka, Florian Reither and Tobias Urban) has transformed the west facing sculpture terrace by flooding it to create a one-metre deep boating pond that will float above the busy Belvedere Road. Gelitin's installation normally, proceeding and unrestricted with without title (2008) creates a surreal sight; a view of their hand-made boats sailing above pedestrian’s heads, against the backdrop of the gallery and surrounding central London landscape.
Two artists, Marco Castillo and Dagoberto Rodriguez, form the Havana-based collective Los Carpinteros (The Carpenters). They have reworked their sculptural installation Cold Study of a Disaster especially for the exhibition. The new work creates a full-scale apartment caught mid-explosion complete with collapsing walls and furniture and furnishings flying through the air.
Mike Nelson has recreated his little seen installation To the memory of H. P. Lovecraft (1999). In an exhausting and painstaking process Nelson has taken an axe to one of the galleries to create a scene of utter devastation, as if a violent unseen beast had torn apart the gallery walls in a desperate attempt to escape.
Brazilian artist, Ernesto Neto has created Life fog frog ... Fog frog (2008) a spatial and sensory environment for visitors to explore. The work features a vaulted dome made with wooden supports and stretched grey lycra, surrounded by a ceiling of fabric which cuts the height of the gallery into two. Visitors can enter this tent-like structure where they are greeted by the smells of cloves and pepper, which hang encased in lycra from the dome’s ceiling.
Slovenian artist Tobias Putrih is showing Venetian, Atmospheric (2007), a beautifully created 30-seat cinema. Designed with curved wooden walls and a ceiling onto which twinkling stars and moving clouds are projected, Venetian, Atmospheric places the spectator in an ever-changing environment. Situated on the sculpture terrace facing Waterloo Bridge, Putrih’s structure screens a specially-curated programme of films about artists and architecture.
Outside on another of the gallery’s sculpture terraces, the Argentinean artist, Tomas Saraceno has installed a huge transparent dome Observatory, Air-Port-City (2008). Visitors walk onto a mirrored floor into a disconcerting space where they can observe the sky above their heads or reflected below their feet. Visitors can also enter the dome at a higher level and climb up onto its transparent air supported ‘pillow’ to observe the visitors below.
Korean-born artist Do Ho Suh is presenting a major new sculpture, Fallen Star 1/5 (2008). The autobiographical work features an extraordinary detailed 1:5 scale model of the artist’s childhood home in Korea colliding into the New England apartment where he lived as an art student, the intricately recreated contents of both houses merged together on impact. In the upper galleries he has created a second work, Staircase - V (2008), a ghostly evocation of the basement staircase in the artist’s apartment that he has fashioned from vibrant red semi-translucent fabric. Suspended from the gallery’s ceiling, the staircase hovers off the gallery floor responding to the slightest movement around it.
Rachel Whiteread is showing a new, larger version of her acclaimed installation Place (Village) (2006-2008) which has never been exhibited in the UK. It brings together more than 200 dollhouses that the artist has collected over the past 20 years. The dollhouses are arranged in rows as on three hillsides, and each is illuminated by a single light bulb, creating an eerily atmospheric scene of an abandoned village.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue produced by Hayward Publishing and featuring essays on each of the artists by contributors including Iain Sinclair and Brian Dillon. Price £26.99. ISBN 978-1-85332-2686. The catalogue will be published on 9 June and features photography of all the installations at The Hayward.
The exhibition is sponsored by Bloomberg.
Additional support has been received from The Henry Moore Foundation and Outset Contemporary Art Fund.
Psycho Buildings opens on 28 May and runs until 25 August 2008.
The Hayward, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XZ
southbankcentre.co.uk/visual-arts
Information and tickets: 0871 663 2519
Opening hours for The Hayward:
Open daily 10am-6pm, late night opening Fridays until 10pm.
Tickets
Advance booking is recommended for this exhibition. Tickets are available at southbankcentre.co.uk, by calling 0871 663 2519, or in person at The Hayward ticket office.
Full Price: £10.00
Seniors 60+: £9.00
Concessions: £6.00
Students: £6.00
Under 16: £4.50
Under 12 (out of school hours): Free
Southbank Centre Members: Free
On 11 July as part of the The Hayward’s 40th anniversary celebrations, exactly 40 years to the day the Gallery first opened to the public, the admission price will be 40p. Supported by Bloomberg.