Long-time London resident and avid museum and theatre-goer. I started this blog in 2014, and got serious about it in 2020 when I realised how much I missed arts and culture during lockdowns. I go to a lot more events than anyone would think is sensible, and love sharing my thoughts in the forms of reviews, the occasional thought piece, and travel recommendations when I leave my London HQ.
The Covid Diaries 55: Southbank Centre, Winter Light
7 mins
A review of the Southbank Centre’s socially distanced winter display of light-based art. Much smaller-scale than Canary Wharf’s offering, but perhaps more interesting for it.
Side of the Southbank Centre / Hayward Gallery from Waterloo Bridge, at sunset.
You Found Another Outdoor Light/Art Exhibition?
Yes I did, thanks for noticing! Shortly after visiting Connected by Lightat Canary Wharf, I noticed the Southbank Centre had undertaken something similar. Since I sometimes frequent this area on my daily exercise, I decided to check it out. I arrived just as the sun was setting, so caught a beautiful sunset over the river. I would recommend this time of day; there was something nice about watching things get darker and artworks fire themselves up. This exhibition has a mix of works which are illuminated all day, and ones which only light up at night, so is best viewed after dark for full effect.
It was interesting to compare Winter Light and Connected by Light. The Southbank Centre’s Winter Light is definitely more compact; you can see the works on a circuit around the Centre including Hayward Gallery and Queen Elizabeth Hall. It is nonetheless harder to navigate, as a 2D map has to be followed in three dimensions across the brutalist complex. It’s confusing at times, but as long as you follow bright lights like artistic moths to a flame, it’s generally fine. There are more small-scale works at the Southbank Centre as well, which you can get up close to.
So if you live near either Canary Wharf or the Southbank Centre, these temporary exhibitions are a nice thing to see. They’re not the most thought-provoking, and you definitely need to wrap up warm. But they have the advantages of being a) art you can see right now and b) allowing everyone to stay safe and socially distanced. I really thank both venues for keeping culture vultures like me going through this long and bleak winter!
Anyway, enough about lockdown. Let’s move on to the art and see what’s on offer as part of Winter Light!
Winter Light – Hayward Gallery and Queen Elizabeth Hall
Tala Madani, A Solo, 2019. This isn’t an illuminated work, but is quite striking and can be seen from Waterloo Bridge. It takes a while to notice the ghostly figure in the chair; and we have to guess at what the story is. What we can see here on Queen Elizabeth Hall is an enlarged reproduction of an original painting, by the looks of it.
David Batchelor, Sixty Minute Spectrum, 2017. I forgot to take a photo of the most visually striking part of this work, which is the pyramid roof of the Hayward Gallery. You can see it here. But the idea is that the lights cycle through the full spectrum of colours once an hour. You can see above the transition from red to yellow. Batchelor’s intention is to turn the spaces into a chromatic clock, echoing the synthetic colours of modern cities.Katie Paterson, Totality, 2016. At first glance, this is a disco ball. At second glance it is also a disco ball, but what is interesting are the mirror fragments. Each of them (more than 10,000) carries an image of a solar eclipse. It’s difficult to make out unless you watch it for a while and see the crescent and halo shapes. Fascinating, but unless you happen to read the text you only get half the story.
Navine G. Khan-Dhossos, No Such Organisation, 2018-20. These panels are part of a large series of kaleidoscopic works. The imagery is drawn from digital plaforms, geographical locations, and current events. Several are arranged around the Hayward Gallery.
Toby Ziegler, Slugs on the Cabbage of Bliss, 2005. I missed another work by Ziegler downstairs. Ziegler likes to combine the digital and handmade. Here, Ziegler has rendered a computer-generated landscape by hand, using Japanese ink on specialist paper.
Winter Light – Halfway Around the Southbank Centre
James Clar, Freefall v. 9, 2011. Viewed from a distance so a little hard to make out (apologies). Clar has used light filters to create the form of a figure, emphasising a sense of speed and motion.
Martin Richman, Reflect, 2020. This is a site-specific commission, which ripples and shimmers to echo the nearby Thames. It reminded me a bit of a turbo-charged Northern Lights, too.
Top to bottom: Louiza Ntourou, Once upon a time, a time that never was and always is, 2018; Simeon Barclay, Capped, 2016; Tavares Strachan, We Are In This Together (Multi), 2019; Shezad Dawood, Mahakala, 2020. I’ve bundled these four works together as they are small-scale, and lined up along the Southbank Centre terrace. You can actually see them in the image of Martin Richman’s Reflect. As you can see, three are neon and one is a video. Barclay captures a certain Zeitgeist in contemporary Britain by drawing on old comics. Strachan calls for unity and togetherness. Ntourou’s video is a ‘visual haiku’. My favourite was Mahakala by Shezad Dawood. It represents a figure from Tibetan Esoteric Buddhism, and is all about overcoming obstacles, compassion, and light emerging from darkness. That’s the sort of energy we need right now.
Jini Reddy, text responding to the theme ‘Winter Light’, 2020. A few of these texts by Reddy are dotted around the buildings. Her bio on the website states that she engages with ‘journeying, spirituality and our relationship to landscape’, which comes through strongly here.Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, To The Moon, 2014. An animation depicting an imagined celestial journey. The figures are taken from found footage – here a Dogon stilt walker from Mali. The dreamlike quality is quite mesmerising.
Winter Light – Back Around the Rest of the Southbank Centre
Teemu Määttänen, Noste, 2008/20. This is a very technical and digital work, but sadly doesn’t look its best above the closed off bar. There is normally a vantage point near the Hayward Gallery but this is currently undergoing repairs so off limits too.
Emma Talbot, Birds, Freedom, 2020. This animation has a deliberately ambiguous narrative, but is fun to watch. The style is simple yet effective.
Suzie Larke, Unseen, 2018-20. Stretching along the wall opposite the Southbank Centre, Larke’s images are full of playful magical realism. Here a woman lies next to a charger, while we wonder about the meaning of the portals on her arm.
Kota Ezawa, supercalifragilistic, 2016. It’s oddly hypnotic watching an endless series of Mary Poppinses come in to land. Surreal but amusing.
Tatsuo Miyajima, Counter Void S-I, 2003. The work in question here is the ‘3’ in the middle of the image. From what I can tell, this work is flexible in terms of size and layout depending on location. Miyajima aims to bring to our attention the passage of time.
David Ogle, Loomin, 2020. And finally, this is probably the part of Winter Light that most people have seen, as they wander along the Southbank. Ogle ‘works with light as a sculptural material’, and here has illuminated the plane trees in front of the Southbank Centre. It’s playful, like a better-thought out version of Neon Tree at Canary Wharf. And here I have managed to capture the effect at sunset and once it’s well and truly dark.
On its own merits: 3/5 Implementing Covid rules: 5/5
Winter Light until 28 February 2021
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One thought on “The Covid Diaries 55: Southbank Centre, Winter Light”
One thought on “The Covid Diaries 55: Southbank Centre, Winter Light”