ART REVIEW: THE NEW DECOR AT THE HAYWARD GALLERY

ART REVIEW: THE NEW DECOR AT THE HAYWARD GALLERY


Comparing with those big galleries, The Hayward Gallery is not big enough .But it’s not the gallery’s size to decide whether the exhibition that the gallery has showed is successful or not.

This summer, at Hayward Gallery, there are 36 artists from 22 different countries bring their artworks to come here having an exhibition named THE NEW DECOR.

This is an excellent exhibition .By transforming or subverting the appearance and display of everyday furniture, these artworks demolish the accepted etiquette of interior design and the idealized image of social behavior that it conveys .There is exuberance, drama, illusion, wit and playfulness, but there is also abjection, pathos and provocation.

Stretched over the entire Hayward Gallery space, The New Decor could have been a revelatory show .It has been organized thematically. The space is used well. Even in the stairs corner, there is an excited moment as well.

The New Decor brings the viewer to the different room, different artist' artwork give us different visual feeling. By reconfiguring and reinventing the familiar, objects of domestic life such as chairs tables, lights, wallpapers and flooring, these artists look beyond design and function to create provocative sculptures and installations.

The furniture in Mona Hatoum's Interior Landscape is uncompromisingly in hospitable, and the only signs of habitation are a bent coat-hanger, a flimsy bag, a pillow with a scattering of hairs and appear plate stained with grease .Every object reveals itself to be a map. The artist personal stories are also embedded in the every object.

The artwork Elmgreen & Dragset (by Michael Elmgreen ,b 1961) shows the bed as well, but the viewer is attracted by the different scene .Metal bunked ,foam rubber sheeting ,pillows, wool rugs. Aren't they are the main material of the everyday’s objects that around us.

In short, The New Decor overall effect is interesting. These artworks individually and collectively prompt us to shift and rearrange our metal furniture and pose questions about the physical, intellectual and psychological relationships between objects. It is successful.