I visited the exhibition on the first day, a glorious sunny Spring morning which definitely created a clean sparkling way to view the pieces, it will be very interesting to keep visiting though to September to see the effect of the Yorkshire weather on how the shapes are viewed. I was mesmerised from the first view of the men around the trees that I saw on a visit last month, but then when entering the Underground gallery a whole new experience began.
The long line of letters sparkling in the sunshine, singing when touched was haunting, sadly no internal photography you will have to experience it, here is a sneaky picture from outside.
The rooms inside are haunting and I was very glad to be the first visitor of the day as wondering through the alabaster head room on my own was quite spiritual and calming, sharing with others would not have held the same resonance, for me at least. Plensa's work is often created for large public outside spaces so is meant for sharing and interacting with.
"Anonymity has grown as the centre of the ritual of our cities, and with them it has developed an aesthetics of protection and camouflage where hiding has become synonymous with comfort. But what do we hide from? What do we protect ourselves against? To hide, to protect, to decorate, to commemorate. They all have the same meaning and ultimately seek to elude our personal memory, substituting it for a collective and comfortable memory where we can take rest from our contradiction. This relinquishment of intimacy (personal freedom) in favour of anonymity (uniform) has also left a deep mark on art in public space" Tenerife 1994
Wow - I need to go see this!
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