Worry Will Vanish, Pipilotti Rist, at Hauser & Wirth, Saville Row, London.
The gallery was transformed into a sensory environment for this exhibition. We were asked to remove our shoes before entering the main installation space. Plush carpet and duvets scattered all over the floor. We lay on the duvets and watched the animation that was projected against two walls.
Worry Will Vanish Horizon, 2014 (audio video installation; corner projection on two walls, sound, carpet, white duvets). Music by Anders Guggisberg.
Worry Will Vanish is a journey inside the human body: creases of skin, blood vessels, veins and arteries, human flesh in all its varied textures was projected against the two walls, periodically overlapping with close-up fragments from nature. The boundaries between the self and organic structures were blurred suggesting our relationship with the universe at large.
Rist draws on principles of Autogenic Training to facilitate a process of relaxation. Autogenic Training involves a repeated set of visualisations, practised in recommended postures, which includes lying down, which are intended to alleviate stress.
The whole experience was certainly extremely relaxing, particularly since we had been walking for a long time around London before we arrived at Hauser & Wirth.
Therapy, certainly, but is it art? Strangely enough your photos and description induced worry in me because with my knackered knees I cannot lie down on the floor with any hope of getting up again. But that said, it looks like quite an experience. It reminds me of the fantastic projections that Mark Doyle used to make in the 60s behind the Soft Machine band gigs.
ReplyDeleteWell, I thought that too. As we were lying there, watching, I said to Ken that it was like watching a lava lamp. Hauser and Wirth obviously thought it was art, and it's so difficult to say with some things these days.... But, it was fun! And you're right, there should have been some benches on the side so that people could sit if they did not want to lie down.
DeleteIt is interesting to have it discussed widely, so that we can gain more objective opinions.
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