The Human Factor at the Hayward
Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2014 1:22 pm
Figurative Sculpture http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/venues/hayward-gallery/exhibitions
1. You get waxworks (realistic) or mannequins (illustrative)
2. You don't get sculptures that do anything in space (except that they're 3D so occupy some).
3. The waxworks are sometimes curious or astonishing but little more.
4. The mannequins illustrate some simplistic ideas.
5. Oh, you get the messy sculptures too, a pile of clay (sometimes bronze masquerading) or foam or some other crap.
6. No one creates figures that make you think about what figures look like, except the uncannily realistic ones which make you do a double take. But we actually see figures in many ways (bits, movement, groups, psychologically).
7. This is a poor show, summed up by the banal art speaky press release below, where simple ideas are made to sound modern by layering them in bullshit.
"International artists confront the question of how we represent the 'human' today.
The Human Factor surveys how artists over the past 25 years have reinvented figurative sculpture, looking back to earlier movements in art history and drawing on contemporary imagery.
The artists engage in dialogues with modernist, classical and archaic models of art.
Across their work, the figure is a catalyst for exploring concerns from political violence and mortality to sexuality and voyeurism.
The exhibition will feature works by over 20 leading international artists including Pawel Althamer, Frank Benson, Huma Bhabha, Katharina Fritsch, Ryan Gander, Rachel Harrison, Georg Herold, Thomas Hirschhorn, Jeff Koons, Paul McCarthy, John Miller, Cady Noland, Ugo Rondinone, Yinka Shonibare, Thomas Schütte, Paloma Varga Weisz, Rebecca Warren, Andro Wekua and Cathy Wilkes."
1. You get waxworks (realistic) or mannequins (illustrative)
2. You don't get sculptures that do anything in space (except that they're 3D so occupy some).
3. The waxworks are sometimes curious or astonishing but little more.
4. The mannequins illustrate some simplistic ideas.
5. Oh, you get the messy sculptures too, a pile of clay (sometimes bronze masquerading) or foam or some other crap.
6. No one creates figures that make you think about what figures look like, except the uncannily realistic ones which make you do a double take. But we actually see figures in many ways (bits, movement, groups, psychologically).
7. This is a poor show, summed up by the banal art speaky press release below, where simple ideas are made to sound modern by layering them in bullshit.
"International artists confront the question of how we represent the 'human' today.
The Human Factor surveys how artists over the past 25 years have reinvented figurative sculpture, looking back to earlier movements in art history and drawing on contemporary imagery.
The artists engage in dialogues with modernist, classical and archaic models of art.
Across their work, the figure is a catalyst for exploring concerns from political violence and mortality to sexuality and voyeurism.
The exhibition will feature works by over 20 leading international artists including Pawel Althamer, Frank Benson, Huma Bhabha, Katharina Fritsch, Ryan Gander, Rachel Harrison, Georg Herold, Thomas Hirschhorn, Jeff Koons, Paul McCarthy, John Miller, Cady Noland, Ugo Rondinone, Yinka Shonibare, Thomas Schütte, Paloma Varga Weisz, Rebecca Warren, Andro Wekua and Cathy Wilkes."