Tuesday 20 July 2010

ICA Oscar Tuazon's installation





The ICA is at the moment hosting a giant installation by Oscar Tuazon.










This installation takes over the lower gallery space and even pushes the boundaries (quite literally) and breaks off into the adjoining rooms.

As soon as you walk into this space you are created with the smell of wood, and 'workman'. The installation is made up in a serious of beams, that uses the distinct choice not to be sanded, but rough and ready. It is what it is, beams of wood connected.

So what is so special about it? As soon as I walked into the space there is a feeling of play within the room. The urge to run from one wall to another, jumping of the beams, balancing on them and ducking and diving through the middle.

There is a huge performativity element with this structure that openly invites you to be fully immersed within its space. Its intriguing to follow the beams that head straight to the walls, to later find out they actually continue through them. Leading from the far office room, you can trace a beam to a beam to a beam that leads you back into the gallery room.

What I've found exciting about this work, is the idea that this is a living structure, it has life, its own routes and directions. That this life of the structure is actually starting to weaken. Due to weather conditions and the atmosphere in the ICA gallery has actually caused the structure to break, weaken and disconnect. Showing the raw and real fragility of such a massive and powering structure.

This piece screams exposure to me; blank spaces, empty rooms, weakness in structure is enduring to see.

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