|
| Foocha! is a non-profit Web site. We do it for kicks, not for cash. If you're interested in writing for the site, click here |
|
 |
| Spectacular Bodies The Haywood Gallery, London, UK,
Museums |
|
 |
|
| Media,
Matt Fresco,
15 January 2001 |
Rating: F4
|
|
| |
| |
|
You are going to need a strong constitution to visit the Hayward Gallery this winter. The first exhibit is a lesson to the makers of Scream if You Know What I Did Last Halloween 2 in how to really scare an audience. As you walk through the innocuous brown doors that lead into the Spectacular Bodies exhibition you are met with a warning of what is to come. A simple tableau of butchers' knives juxtaposed with surgical implements.
If Marina Wallace and Martin Kemp were trying to provoke a reaction at this exhibition they have achieved their aim. Waves of nausea swept from tingling toes. Brows were scratched and glasses cleaned. Not only is this powerful, emotive stuff it is also a smash hit. This is big box office. Horror is a hit in the art world. Blood and guts sell. We are both victim and subject and the lure is irresistible. While we may be repulsed at the sight of a living heart beating or a dissection board of eye balls in varying states of undress like onions on the kitchen table, we are also drawn in with open mouthed amazement at the complexity and beauty of it all.
In the first room we are met with severed heads. 17th century Dutch portraits of surgeons, and works by Géricault, Rembrandt and Courbet are shown in an enlightening new context as they gently invite us to consider the exhibitions theme. Respectable gentlemen are proudly displayed with their autopsy victims. They sit comfortably like old men on a park bench clucking at the new generation as medical texts and life size anatomical models parade past. But there is worse in store, wax works of decomposition, babies still in the womb are fearfully shown in a whole room of exhibits dedicated to raping the secrets of life from the female form. The exhibition makes no apologies nor asks for justification.
Top Home |
|
|
|
|
