Hayward – Seen and Done

Anish Kapoor

July 19, 2026

We went to see the Anish Kapoor exhibition at the Hayward, which is really worth a look.

One room is devoted to Vantablack, the super-dark pigment made from carbon fibre tubes to which Kapoor, controversially, has sole artistic rights. It absorbs light so totally that features of a surface are invisible when viewed head-on – they look flat unless viewed from the side. This is remarkable and a lot of fun, though it perhaps has the feel of a corporate tech presentation more than creative art.

Another theme is bloody sacrifice, with an upside down bloody mountain and piles of large, realistic entrails. Before entering we were solemnly warned not to touch anything – one appealingly fluffy red mountain would apparently leave indelible stains on the fingers. On a similar theme, perhaps, there are paintings of what look like wounds and scars gilded or streaked with gold. There are also gigantic red inflatables crammed into a couple of galleries: perhaps they too recall huge guts.

In the outside spaces are a series of curved mirror shapes, the perfect reflection being perhaps the opposite of the Vantablack. The distorted views from these are again a lot of fun, and they would be great permanent additions to any public space.

I feel I may have missed the deeper significance of these works, but one thing I can promise is that you won’t be bored.

There is Light Somewhere

July 24, 2024

Tavares Strachan: There is Light Somewhere, at the Hayward, is striking and provokes both thought and quibbles. It features many striking pieces. Heads of black heroes, either huge and crisscrossed with cracks full of writing (which I couldn’t read), or open to reveal another head within, or fronted by an African tribal mask. Celebrations of the invisible (Strachan’s own encyclopaedia, glass statues suspended in clear oil). And pieces that relate to aspirational journeys, whether a Black Star ship amazingly on the gallery roof, black astronauts, or Strachan’s own journey to the North Pole, where he planted the flag of his native Bahamas, and shipped back a block of ice.

It seems clear that this show is about black aspiration, a search for light in the darkness and within the self. The message is encouraging, inspiriting, not downbeat, but even without that positive context most of the works are well worth seeing.

The quibbles? Some of the people in the encyclopaedia don’t seem all that invisible (Mary Woolstonecraft? Xenocrates?) while others perhaps deserve to be (minor characters from cartoons?). It’s not clear that the African people who made the masks would have liked their being used here, nor whether all the heroes would welcome wearing them. Is Septimius Severus the Roman Emperor here because he was born in Africa? But he is surely a leader of European imperialism (clue’s in his title).

But those are indeed quibbles. A memorable exhibition.

Strange Clay

January 6, 2023

Went to Strange Clay at the Hayward Gallery. I feared this might be a bit austerely intellectual, but in fact most exhibits are attractive as well as interesting, and several are humorous to varying degrees. There is a self-portrait with critique by (Sir) Grayson Perry and a piece by Edmund de Waal, better known to me as the author of The Hare with Amber Eyes. I’m afraid the latter is the least enjoyable thing in the show: small white pots in vitrines hoisted above your head. Katharine rightly said it looked like additional light fittings… Generally though, the show is a lot of fun.