Gabby: Jacob Kassay at the ICA

A space within the ICA, separated from the rest of the building by being about half a meter lower – accessible by one set of steps (and a small lift for wheelchairs) but not completely escaping its feel as a through room as the public who bypass walk along the raised side only separated by a railing. It’s a gallery space so it’s white. So is the ceiling, which is made of large white muted lights and separated by large metal beams forming a grid like pattern. It’s easy to forget that you are in fact in a classical building. There are windows though Jacob Kassay has covered them in a very large blank canvas that takes up the entire space of the outside wall. Four more of these ‘canvases’ create a space with in this space and cradle a few more canvases accept these ones are cleverly covered in an enchanting film of silver. Enchanting because they capture light and reflections so beautifully…so gracefully. Enchanting because of their value.

While in discussion in this space we observe the entire room from afar and then the perfect imperfections in these silver canvases. However, the giant blank canvases on which these silver ones are hung, though intriguing at first, don’t seem all that necessary and just draw our attention away from being lost in a sea of silver to analyse the space…. I’d rather be in the sea of silver. All this chat only to conclude with an amazing interest into their worth – both intrinsically and that through popularity. When selling at figures like $86,500 a piece, for an artist who’s only in his twenties, it’s hard to see past it.

The artist wants us to not just see his work but see the space, the world in which it’s lives, the world in which we live. I saw the world and I would rather be looking at painting/sculpture/instillation. So Jacob, drop the blank canvases, stick to the silver ones. Let us escape. 

Amy Potts Pipilotti Rist

Pipilotti Rist’s exhibition ‘eyeball massage’ featured in the Hayward Gallery was the most striking to me that day. The large installation transforms mundane objects into powerful visual art that visitors can experience by walking through the exhibition surrounded by projectors of films. Pipilotti Rist’s work represents a new type of art which speaks only through visual art, where literature is less important and the artistic images are important. It transgresses the old concept of art as now she uses film to display visual art not in the traditional sense. I think the show is successful for creating the illusion of dreaming. One piece which was the most striking to me was ‘Atmosphere and Instinct’ this piece featured in one the cubicles in the ladies toilets displaying a woman in a red dress seeming to cry out for help to the viewer, this breaks down the boundaries in art and yet again creates a personal connection between the art itself and the visitors of the gallery. To me this piece was the most influential as it sets of other emotions like the idea of forgiveness and punishment. Rist wanted to display these emotions and how far people will go to punish themselves or others for mistakes made. Rist’s work seems like a drastic study of visual art where the entire exhibition is based on film and moving images, it displays how powerful film can be as the exhibition is curated in a way that invites the public to not be passive viewers but to actively walk through the art.

Katy O'Sullivan George Condo

I really enjoyed George Condo’s exhibition ‘Mental States’. Impressed by both the sculptural pieces and the paintings, I felt that his works were successful in being simultaneously humorous and disturbing. The first thing I noticed about his pieces was the heavy influence of comics and cartoons. This I felt made the experience of seeing these tortured, mentally disturbed characters all the more uncomfortable, due to the connotations they had with childhood. Whilst also bringing to light the bond between our aesthetic appreciation and more juvenile pleasures. Condo states that he ‘manufactures the characters in the same way a playwright comes up with the lives of characters’. I personally found this element of storytelling to be quite prominent and engaging – it felt as if we as viewers were being invited into a morphed fantasy world, in which we are disgusted by what we see, but equally as intrigued due to our own state of mind and how easily we are able to relate. This, perhaps, is what made him stand out the most to me - the manner in which he portrayed this ‘mental state’, as Condo’s subjects and representations come very close to daily life. We are not presented with clinically insane characters, but rather ones we come unpleasantly close to identifying with. Walking through the exhibition it seemed difficult to ignore the conflicting feelings and emotions I felt towards his work as his paintings allow and encourage us to explore aspects of both our compassion and sadism, horror and laughter, and also our fascination. After having seen his paintings, I feel it was my ‘mental state’ being called to question and examined rather than that of his subjects.



Pipilotti Rist, eyeball massage

Caitlin Young Pipilotti Riste

Pipilotti Riste has managed to create an exhibition within the Hayward gallery that even a gallery novice would struggle to not enjoy the immersion of soothing tones and bright colours of the videos that merge within the different spaces. ‘Eyeball massage’ encompasses over 30 of her pieces all of a variety of dizzy, colourful, buzzing colours and lights.

An assortment of erotics, subversion and innocence appear to encompass the gallery. She uses different sizes and scales distinctively within the gallery space. As the viewer we are put in a position where we are made to feel smaller or bigger than in fact we are. One such miniature objects that we tower over is ‘Selfless in the bath of lava’. It is so tiny within the gallery space that I very nearly missed the video. A woman cries out help within what appears to be a hole within the ground. It was disturbing having her below my feet, which Riste of course heightens through the woman crying out for help and pleading with us in different languages. We have to crouch so close to the video to hear and see it clearly that it causes an intense, powerful feeling. We appear gigantic and yet helpless through her desperation of us to rescue her. Riste exaggerates this powerlessness through the woman being naked whilst I remain clothed above her and eventually have to walk away and leave the pleading woman.

Shifting perspectives are used in her exploration of the human body. Riste celebrates the human body as a central theme to her exhibition. She appeared to want to break free from the social and cultural taboos. ‘Mutaflor’ is projected on the floor and which we move around; unsure of which way we are meant to view the video. The naked artist looks up and opens her mouth. It feels like she encompasses and swallows us, in which we enter complete darkness. The darkness merges into the artist’s anus and then the journey restarts. The video shakes up taboos and as it is so difficult at first to work out what is occurring within the video we watch the video for perhaps longer than we would if had known straight away what the work contained. Watching people’s reaction once they realise the details of the video simply supports Riste’s theory of these social taboos. I saw many a disgusted face once the video sunk in.

Some of the works did not appeal as much as I would have expected. The tiny LCD screens that are hidden within handbags and shells were not as interesting or appealing as some of the more immense work. However the main blend of such rich primary colours and earthy bursts of sexuality and feminism led for the exh8ibtion to capture my attention instantly and the soothing qualities allowed the exhibition to have a certain relaxing and warming quality.

Pipilotti Rist, eyeball massage

Pipilotti Rist

Upon entering the gallery I felt very overwhelmed visually to the sheer space and amount of sound coming from different directions, the fact I had just queued up to buy a ticket in a very mundane surrounding added to that feeling, almost as if I was buying a cinema ticket and then queuing up again to go through two double doors into this huge dark space filled with light and sound.

The first thing I noticed was the underwear chandelier and I remember thinking “I’d love that in my house” then from there, I think the focal point initially which held my attention was the miniature house with wall projection.

I love the way Rist uses scale to such a great extent, to make these dinky little maquettes without making them look too childish or resembling doll houses. She manages to somehow create something otherworldly by projecting video onto or around her maquette she turns them into a small reality, like a different miniature dimension. I believe it is her use of sound and video shrunk to the desired scale that suggests that it’s more than a maquette, it uses technology! In other words a big step up from a dolls house and possibly closer to the real world than the toy.

Further, when looking at the maquettes one has to peer into, around, down onto or up at depending on the piece and placement. Rist’s idea that the human body is central plays havoc with her artworks in order to view the majority of her maquettes looking into them is required like the piece “ your space capsule”. Which is a wooden packing crate with a miniature bedroom inside, filled with a moon, stars, the obvious bedroom materials and projections and sound.

This is created in order to distort the viewer’s set ways of movement and viewing in the gallery space. Rist disrupts the viewing rituals by projecting images which to be seen properly require the viewer to be lying down, looking into, walking around or even over the artworks. This works wonders for “your space capsule” by encouraging the viewers to peer deep into the box with only enough space comfortably for one viewer at a time. It becomes private as you gaze into an empty room you feel as if that room is your own and you are for that second mentally transported away from a public gallery space and the miniature world seems bigger than it actually is.

Lauren Roberts

Emma Davis: PIPILOTTI RIST, EYEBALL MASSAGE

Trying to find the entrance, I couldn’t help but notice several washing lines of underwear criss crossing one another that Pilotti Rist had strung around the area approaching the doors of the Hayward Gallery. The best bit about this was the fact they weren’t sexy lingerie, but ‘Bridget Jones’ hold in pants! Big pant that suck in all your lumps and bumps in the adventurous shade of white; very boring! They looked soft, worn out and very practical. I enjoyed this straight away as it felt humorous and lighthearted.
When I entered the gallery, a huge chandelier of even more pants hung from the ceiling high enough for you to pear underneath and look up through the middle. It lit up the entire space it is located in and really captured my attention. Although the underwear wasn’t flattering to look at, this piece of art was aesthetically pleasing and I just couldn’t help but like it. I think this is because of the mixture of erotic’s it has within its meaning, innocence and sense of rebellion that is portrayed throughout her whole exhibition.