Royal Academy of Arts: Sensing Spaces.Current Exhibition.

Went with my friends to the Royal Academy of Arts to view the exhibition: Sensing Spaces Architecture Reimagined, this exhibition was also suggested to me by my Theory Tutor which is about directly experiencing architecture within a gallery environment. It's not just about seeing or the function of architecture but it's about how a specific architectural environment makes you feel, so it's about creating sensations within the audience, to educate but also to awaken viewers to possibilities of different architectural structures. Most  of the exhibitions I have seen of architecture including the one shown in the past at the Royal Academy of Arts  generally included models, photographs, drawings which you can observe from afar and you don't really experience them directly while with this exhibition instead the aim is for the audience to encounter the building directly, and at the same time check our responses with our senses: smell, sounds, material. Does the material for example make you feel oppressed or liberated?From the smell point of view I must say there was hardly anything, I couldn't smell anything. 

The Royal Academy of Arts invited seven architects from around the world: Grafton Architects (Ireland), Diebedo Francis Kere' (Burkina faso and Germany), Kengo Kuma (Japan), Li Xiadong (China), Pezo von Ellrichshausen ( Chile), Alvaro Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura (Portugal), to create unique spaces for us to experience. They created architectural installations that play with light, movement, mass and interaction. Some are referencing and looking towards the past while being able to create something new to help our exploration of architectural environments, structures, so that we can then respond to them in our own personal way and also see the Gallery space in a new way, this thanks to the large size of some of the architectural pieces. You might find looking down on the gallery or going through a cave like construction and seeing the rest of gallery from an all together different perspective. Grafton Architects focus on light with simple minimalist lines.

One of my favourite structures was the one by Diebedo Francis Kere' because as a viewer I was allowed to intervene in the structure and change it. The installation was constantly evolving as viewers where coming in and adding long colourful plastic straws to it, I saw kids and adults laughing together doing something together even if we didn't know each other, which shows that the aim of the work is to create 'a 'community based activity for people to get together  and where the building is constantly changing  thanks to the participation of the audience'. It's a colourful, interactive architectural piece where everybody can leave their mark as you can see  the transformation of the structure in the pictures below.

While in Li Xiadong work which we went inside  a narrow maze like path made out of tall sticks of hazel  walking on small pebbles, rocks it made me feel that I was in a zen room ( one room was squared with mirrors so one could see oneself in the room walking) the act of walking and feeling the pebbles underneath my shoes was very relaxing  has he said himself: 'in Sensing Spaces I reuse the zen concept to psychologically remove the visitors from the space in London, so that the audience can comprehend the Zen Garden as the centre of his maze'. Not sure this was fully achieved for me as the dark brown twigs walls weren't tall enough  and I was very much aware of the Royal Academy of Arts beaming white ceilings above me. Also sections of  the floor was made out of acrylic, illuminated by bright leds which is got nothing to do with Zen Gardens and one can find more in nightclubs or  minimalist hotels.

Kengo Kuma was supposed to be an aromatic experience, one room impregnated with Japanese Cyprus the other with tatami to bring memory of his childhood but it wasn't for me as I couldn't smell anything ( even If I could smell tatami I wouldn't know what a tatami smelts like it was to specific) it looked like a thin structure of woven fragile bamboo going up in the shape of a bonfire, the rooms where dark and light from below. In the other room still dark the bamboo where going in a different direction still I couldn't smell anything and I bumped into someone else as I could hardly see due to the room being so dark..

I actually liked more the works by the duo Pezo von Ellrichshausen which was a huge wooden structure resembling Russian constructivism, the light wood gave it a homely solid feel  to it, my friend did run up the staircase inside of it. The piece consists of three towers and one can get to the top and look down on the rest of the gallery from a point of view which one could have never experienced without this piece and you could also see, through the wooden planks, the Royal Academy of Arts golden Angels, love them. They take the intimidating idea that big large buildings can give out as they allow the viewer with a more private, intimate temporarily ownership, thanks to the materials and the way it's designed that you can run if you want up the staircase in a free kind of way, saw lots of kids and adults alike run up the structure and looking around.

While the Portuguese Eduardo Soto de Moura's made copies of door cases, of high performance reinforced  concrete at the Royal Academy to two galleries of the exhibition, the arches mirror the existing doorways and are set at a specific angle. I went through them and felt like I was going though a portal that I might dematerialise like in Star Trek, one of my favourite pieces really strange how the mind works. He said about the installation that is about: 'the performance of form and continuity in architecture'.

Richard Deacon at Tate Britain. Current Exhibition.

Between lectures I went and see the exhibition of Richard Deacon at Tate Britain. In his exhibition where on show both his large scale sculptures and more domestic smaller works which I had never seen before. The sculptures are a combination of different materials from laminated wood to leather to polycarbonate combined with elements of engineering there are also large ceramic pieces the biggest I have ever seen which I found interesting as I make works in ceramics myself but on a smaller case due to lack of studio space, storage space and lack of help because obviously in his case he employes people to help him realise his visions. He works with different methods of construction creating  great movement in some of the works. The piece Blind Deaf & Dumb (first pic. below) which is made out of laminated wood with a lot of movement that made me think of  continuous musical keys the movement gave  playfulness to the piece, the turns and twists without a solid centre could have resembled  a stripped boat which is opposite to the large green ceramic piece (second pic below) in the entrance hall of Tate Britain which I failed to see at first and  made out of solid ceramic which has weight, it's dense the opposite of Blind Deaf & Dumb. Deacon's Fold 2012  it's really huge, stands as beginning and end to the exhibition. It's a public sculpture in glazed ceramic made out of 9 closely clustered towers that resembled a freestanding folding screen. Some of the titles in his work give out his interest in poetic and philosophical ideas and an interest between each component and the whole.

Other of his ceramic pieces are based on geometries while the sculptures made out of  tubular wooden pieces that you can see right through which reminded me of roller coasters. I wanted to get inside of it but one is not allowed see the sculpture 'After' below.

One piece I particularly liked was a large ceramic sculpture that looked like a  white rope and I was wondering how did he make it? It's ceramics but it bents and it's floppy going downwards without breaking it looked so natural it's really incredible. Richard Deacon makes the materials do things you would think they would not be able to do: metal that bends in several directions but with out breaking it's really complex manufacturing combined with organic movement. You can see the white ceramic rope at the back of the image dangling down from the ceiling below.

He goes from movement and openness in Room 2 & Room 5 to stasis and closure in Room 3 & Room 6 a careful combination of volume and gravity from abstract to organic forms. One can walk around the sculptures but not through them which I felt like doing, climbing inside them or under. Also I noticed that while the surface of his culture are smooth and one felt drawn to touch them one wasn't allowed too. The screws, glue, bolts where visible which I found at odds with the smoothness of the surface of the wood and metal sheets he didn't try to hide the roughness. Some of pieces are based on nature but are complex man made constructions more close to an engineering work then sculpting it made me think of a combination of industrial design, architectural decoration with an element of the fantastical see below.

There are also pieces such as Other People 0f 1982 below (Fig.1). A combination of leather, marble, rubber and stone which seems to me due to their small size that are meant for the house, for an intimate environment that one could transport easily, if travelling. More suitable for a domestic setting, a combination of hard and soft that I found to be quite sensual. Some of the titles in his work give out his interest in poetic and philosophical ideas and an interest between each component and the whole.  Also there is a smaller ceramic piece which is modular, undulating (Fig.2) over all the colour scheme used in the pieces is towards the minimal, I guess in a way to accompany form and not detract or contrast from it, the only time the colour is more prominent and more wild in away it is in the piece  called Tropic
( Fig.3).

                                                                          Fig.3

The piece Struck Dumb below it's made out of sturdy steel, it's an industrial construction built in a shipyard ( an industry in decline), I wonder if this sculpture might be Richard Deacon's  memorial to  British shipbuilding? It has a dark surface with some red, the title it's very good, will we the viewers strike the piece to find out what noise it makes? No I didn't see anybody in the gallery trying so it is 'struck dumb', we will never know and I did have an urge to go underneath it but I stopped myself.

Near the Ceramic white rope there was also another piece called 'Waiting for the Rain' below, that looked like a giant sculpted rock that one could find on a film set made from terracotta again I did find incredible that for a such large piece it wasn't cracked. The terracotta colour was calming but some how a bit unnatural, over powering, it's the same strong colour all around the piece which made it look a bit fake, at the same time I felt I wanted to sit on it but due to the undulations in the work I couldn't.

Below also are some images that show the complexity of putting Richard Deacon's work together

It was an enjoyable exhibition below is some info on Richard Deacon and an interview given by him  on you tube.

Richard Deacon was born in Bangor, Wales, in 1949. He studied at Somerset College of Art, Taunton (1968), St Martin's School of Art (1970-3) and the Royal College of Art (1974-7( where he gained an Ma in Enviromental Media. The exhibition is curated by Clarrie Wallis with Sofia Karamani.

Below is an interview of Richard Deacon.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIqBdDApU04