joseph scissorhands: When Forms Come Alive: 60 Years of Restless Sculpture

Tara Donovan - Untitled (Mylar), 2011

This exhibition was great fun. Full of striking, modern sculpture that didn't take itself too seriously, challenging notions of what sculpture actually is, or indeed could be. Many of the sculptures featured are playful, and created from innovative materials which meant the pieces on display were very easy to engage with. First on entering the gallery you are confronted with Studio Drift's lantern forms that descend from, then rise back to the ceiling like blooming flowers blossoming in a strange dance. Just across from these weird creatures is an interesting piece by Michel Blazy which belches out sculptural sheets of foam bubbles. Much of the work on display appears to be about transition. The artist as alchemist appearing to transform the qualities of their (hard) materials into something altogether softer, more organic, something with altogether different qualities. A case in point here being the Lynda Benglis's sculptures made from metal but reduced to looking like molten, blobby forms. The illusion of sculpting a material to make it appear to be something that it isn't is an old conceit. Historically sculptors as diverse as Bernini, Michelangelo and Rodin worked their magic on their materials to evoke a convincing trompe l'oeil effect with stone or bronze. Many of the works also appeared to evoke nature in the form of flora or biological entities and organs like Choi Jeong Hwa's Blooming Matrix, a series of plant-like structures, or Teresa Solar Abboud's Tunnel Boring Machine pieces which resembled parts of the human skeletal system. Tara Donovan's show-stopping Untitled (Mylar) was like an enlarged series of atom cell clusters rampantly re generating themselves in a laboratory. I first came across Marguerite Humeau's sculptures with their fascinating combinations of natural materials such as beeswax, wood and glass emitting an ominous buzzing sound accompaniment at a joint exhibition at White Cube Bermondsey last year. They are beautifully crafted, looking like exotic hybrid species imported from an alien planet. Much of the sculpture here left you wondering about the artists' process and exactly how their sculptures were created like Olaf Brzeski - Dream - Spontaneous Combustion, a plume of blackened smoke emanating from a wall, which also begs the question what happened? Exactly what exploded leaving this dramatic pall of smoke? There was a nice variation in the scale of pieces on display. Matthew Ronay's small, surreal organisms displayed on a table were created on an intimate, human scale inviting closer inspection from visitors in direct contrast to Tara Donovan's sprawling gallery-filling Untitled. I'm sure that this will be a very popular exhibition at Hayward, as much a hit on social media as with actual visitors to the gallery.