A room filled with glowing fog; shadowy figures among glittering LEDs and warm ‘breathing’ columns of light. Welcome to the trip that is Light Show (until 28 April), the Hayward Gallery’s latest exhibition exploring how artists have used the medium of artificial light over the past five decades. With side effects of disorientation, slight panic and hallucinatory visions, this exhibition is an intoxicating sensory cocktail, plunging visitors into a world that is recognisable and unfathomable at the same time.
With sculptures and installations that visitors can step into, Light Show is a fitting title for something that is, in many ways, more spectacle than ‘exhibition’. This art is entertainment; children stared hypnotised at the winking lights of Jim Campbell’s ‘Exploded View (Commuters)’, 2011, above, while couples held on to each other in the fragmented darkness of Anthony McCall’s ‘You and I, Horizontal’.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in