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| 16 - Rain Room Installation image © Felix Clay Rain Room, Random International 2012. Courtesy of Barbican Art Gallery |
THE CURVE, BARBICAN
until March 3rd
Dio you remember fairy tales where you could step over mountains in your seven-league boots and swallow a lake too, if they happened to be in your way? But did anyone think of dry rain?
Here we have it at the Barbican. Except that it is anything but dry. Rain falls from the ceiling in silver shreds, it crashes onto the grating below your feet, bounces up as silver spheres like ball bearings, then settles under the grating in a dark pool.
But you, the person walking through the rain, are DRY.
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| 11 - Rain Room Installation image © Felix Clay Rain Room, Random International 2012. Courtesy of Barbican Art Gallery |
Rain Room is a 100 square metre field of falling water into which you are invited to plunge. First you hear the sound of the water, then feel the moisture in the air on your cheek. You step into the rain field, aware that overhead censors will pick up your presence and quietly steal away the rain from above your head.You may chose to become a performer on an unexpected stage, or to be still, to reflect and to contemplate in this curiously intimate atmosphere,
Legend has it that King Canute, tired of the vainglorious flattery of his courtiers, proved to them his fallibility by trying in vain to stop the incoming tide. He drew his throne up to the sea's edge, commanded it to be still - and his feet got very wet. Now we are all King Canutes, and successful ones at that.
The work invites us to explore what role science, technology and human ingenuity might play in stabilising our environment by rehearsing the possibilities of human adaptation. On four Sundays (18 Nov, 2 Dec, 20 Jan and 24 Feb) there will be a new short dance intervention (Wayne McGregor with a score by Max Richter) created in response to the Rain Room. Admission is free on a first-come, first served basis. You may also like to catch the Superhuman exhibition exploring human enhancement which happens to be on at the Wellcome Collection in Marylebone Road until Octeber 16th.
P S Jonathan Jones has a longer review in the Guardian's weekly Art Review (5.10.12)
P S Jonathan Jones has a longer review in the Guardian's weekly Art Review (5.10.12)
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