Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Psycho Buildings at the Hayward Gallery


Kim came up from Brighton, and we met at London Bridge. On the way out of the tube station, I noticed a wreath with the London transport logo, commemorating '52 Customers'. How awful that Thatcherspeak still lives on all these years later, and those poor passengers are described in commercial terms rather than in human terms, in death as in life!
I found this really upsetting, like being force-fed something really disgusting at an emotional and truthful moment.
I respect my fellow humans killed by terrorists a year ago.

So...
We decided to walk from London Bridge to the Hayward Gallery, in spite of the gloomy sky and chilly air. It's a great walk, past Southwark Cathedral, the ancient ship, the brand new Globe, various buskers (vibraphone today) the Tate Modern, all street-arted up, skateboarders, a jogger with a very wobbly bottom, and a second-hand book sale.
The exhibition was a real mixed bag of stuff- we'd gone to see Rachel Whiteread's dolls houses (they were great, charming and exciting and inspiring); we were not very impressed by a tissue-paper house that reminded us both of school art projects, nor a fake-exploded house (yawn) but we loved the red net stairs and banisters made by Do Ho Suh that floated above us in the air. It made you want to be a red net person and walk upstairs past the red net light switches on to the red net floor above. It was perfectly-made, with the dowelling of the banisters beautifully detailed.
Best of all, however, were the boats. They have an exceedingly pretentious title which I am sure is meant to be funny, but they were boats- on the roof! You could get in, grab hold of two silly yellow plastic oars, and scull about in shallow water several floors up, with views of the Wheel and the Thames and little buses and the big blue sky- it was huge fun, especially as the oars (or we) were so completely inefficient. When you'd had enough, they hauled you in with umbrellas and you climbed out on to a wobbly yellow waterlogged carpet.
Amazing!!
Pic: strangers on a rooflake

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