The Hayward Gallery - Walking In My Mind

Don't touch! Really? Hopefully you wouldn't dream of getting hands-on in an Old Masters gallery, but when it comes to modern and contemporary galleries the temptations have grown more common, and with it, these sorts of reprimands. The boundaries of an artist's freedom within a museum have expanded exponentially in the last century, so to should the freedom of the spectator. The Hayward Gallery's most recent exhibition "Walking In My Mind" invites you to 'adventure into the artist's mind,' by walking amidst Yayoi Kusama's polka-dotted hallucinations (above) or meandering through Thomas Hirschhorn's (literally) cavernous thoughts. If you savor the surreal then this exhibition will thrill you. Charles Avery's surreal creations are truly mythical. His work is entirely based upon the objects, people, and nature of an imaginative island. Seen through the eyes of an unidentified explorer, the spectator examines a variety of island specimen: rockmice, a solopsist (as well as the solipsist's hat), and The Eternity Chamber. The surreal continues with English artist Keith Tyson's studio wall drawings (below). Brought together by a uniform size, Tyson's pictures are gridded across three walls as three stacked rows. Tyson draws from his own ideas and emotions, the emotions of those around him, and the effects of significant events going on in the outside world. The results, which we now witness, take us on a visual trip into his studio, his laboratory, and his mind. The clutter of the unconscious is brought forth to the conscious in Jason Rhoades Creation Myth (1998). The spectator is made to snake around an enormous conglomerate of stacked tables decorated with red, fabric tunnels, TVs, a train carrying a stuffed-animal snake, stacked magazines, cameras, buckets, shredded paper, a surplus of wires and countless other seemingly random items. Creation Myth is about the mind as a source of creation and how it arbitrarily files our thoughts away, eventually helping us to create more. As I sauntered around Creation Myth, I came across a small step ladder upon which sat a little black box adorned with a shiny red button, which appeared to be connected to one giant speaker. Quick to ignore my colleague's advice, I pressed the button. A gallery assistant immediately protested, announcing that the button was not meant for pressing, and that any sound I heard as a result of pressing the button was merely a coincidence. I fought back, declaring the universal truth that "buttons are made for pressing." My associate wisely concluded that to prevent this from happening again, the gallery ought to cover the button with a piece of cloth or even a hanky. The assistant didn't think much of either of us. Whether the artist meant this or not, the addition of a button to his installation did exactly as his work dictates: it creates. Not only did it create a string of events, it created a memory that was stored away in the mind, ready to benefit a future creation. Dates: Walking In My Mind - until 6th September 2009 Admission: £9, £8 for 60+, £6 for students, £4.50 for 12-18, free for under 12 Tube Stop: Waterloo (Jubilee, Northern, and Bakerloo lines, National Rail), Embankment (Circle, District, Northern, and Bakerloo lines) Notes: 5 minute walk from Waterloo. From Embankment: 10 minute walk. Cross walking bridge immediately at entrance of station, once across turn left, walking along the river for 1 minute. minute walk. Photo Credits: guardian.co.uk