Admission: £8 (but cheaper if you're over 60) (and even cheaper if you're a student) (and half price on Mondays) (and absolutely free between 8am and 10am this weekend only, as part of the RFH Overture weekend) (so I went yesterday morning at half past eight, because I'm a cheapskate)
You've seen Antony Gormley. He's the Angel of the North. He's up to his neck in water on Crosby beach. And he's the bloke currently standing naked on various rooftops around the South Bank. Yes, him. A sculptor who focuses on the human form, specifically his own body, usually naked. Like you do. So an exhibition of his work ought to be rather interesting. And it is.
Two particular exhibits have got London talking. The first of these is EventHorizon - 31 humanoid statues littering the capital's skyline in seeminglyrandom fashion. But make your way out onto one of the Hayward Gallery's three upper terraces and the epicentre of the work is suddenly clear. A cloned army of inert figures are looking up at you from the walkways below, and down from the rooftops above (from a very long way away in certain cases - however did Gormley have the audacity to scatter himself so widely?). This is art as a visual puzzle - how many of the hidden mannequins can you spot - and would make a very good long-distance eye test, should any central London optician be interested.
And secondly, inside the gallery, there's BlindLight - a glowing white cloud in a sweaty glass box. Fancy going inside? A gallery attendant stands by the narrow entrance wielding a health and safety laminate which you have to read before you're allowed to enter (warning: floor may be wet, claustrophics discouraged, etc). You may well laugh, but three steps through the portal and you'll soon discover that the warning was deadly serious. Everything in your field of vision, including the doorway, has completely vanished in an all-enveloping white fog. Try not to be distracted by the microscopic floaters swimming around in your eyeball, suddenly visible with crystal clarity. Time for a disoriented wander. Do you dare to stride bravely into the centre of the room, or will you sidle cautiously around the perimeter of the box for fear of getting lost. Occasionally a grey human form passes fleetingly by, then fades back into the swirling mist on a separate aimless voyage. Stumbling upon the glass wall always comes as a surprise, and here vision partially returns as you squint out into the surrounding gallery. Everyone outside the box is now watching you, trapped like a helpless zoo animal in a steamed-up cage. You've become part of the art, part of the show... maybe permanently if you don't manage to find the way out. Well, it feels like a genuine possibility at the time.
This being a particularly humid attraction, they have to close it down every now and again for a good scrub down. It's quite surreal peering in through the fading mist and spotting a man de-squelching the floor with a mop and bucket. And, as the white glow fades further, spotting a mass of chunky humidifiers hanging from the box's ceiling. Gormley's illusion is broken as the magic mist slowly drifts away.
There are plenty of other exhibits to view. Allotment is a room full of stacked concrete cuboids representing the bodily measurements of 300 Malmo residents (I was approximately the same size as person number 201, who's probably called Sven or something). Space Station is a 27-ton 'asteroid' assembled from scores of steel boxes, jammed diagonally into one of the Hayward's larger display spaces. Hatch is a room-sized box filled with sticky-out geometrically-aligned aluminium rods (step inside, carefully, and it's like being a Crystal Maze contestant in your very own two minute mystery challenge). Matrices and Expansions is a room full of Gormley's trademark cryptic bodyforms, each 'hidden' within a surrounding polyhedral aura. And there are further bodily images within the exhibition wherever you look - hanging from the ceiling, climbing a wall, splayed across the corner of a room, even nibbled out of a sliced bread mosaic. You'll certainly walk out with an intimate knowledge of Antony's multi-talented torso. And a smile on your face.
Two particular exhibits have got London talking. The first of these is Event Horizon - 31 humanoid statues littering the capital's skyline in seemingly random fashion. But make your way out onto one of the Hayward Gallery's three upper terraces and the epicentre of the work is suddenly clear. A cloned army of inert figures are looking up at you from the walkways below, and down from the rooftops above (from a very long way away in certain cases - however did Gormley have the audacity to scatter himself so widely?). This is art as a visual puzzle - how many of the hidden mannequins can you spot - and would make a very good long-distance eye test, should any central London optician be interested.
