That which shines brightly

Having just about survived fundraising for charity in the cold, wet, unforgiving London streets, i am now gainfully employed as a gallery assistant at the Hayward. The job entails dressing in black, manning a radio mike, smiling pleasantly while trying my best to look stern, telling members of the public what not to do and spending my working hours standing amidst large scale works of art. My first week had me smugly smiling to myself in glee. What a great part time job!

The exhibition in question, which led to my timely employment, opened to the general public this week.
It is Blind Light by Anthony Gormley.
Taking it's name from an installation featuring a large, cloud filled perspex cube housed within the lower gallery, Gormley's works question our relationship with space, be it architecture or our own bodies. To quote:

'The body is our first habitation, the building our second.'...1997

The works on display startle, provoke and excite; bodies become cities, solitary figures stand tall (or small) atop buildings on the horizon, empty body spaces hang suspended amidst glistening bubble matrices, 8 life like cast iron figures stretch painfully to attach themselves to the corners of a room, a chamber punched through with holes and aluminium tubes beckons to the less faint hearted to navigate through and the starring attraction; Blind Light, envelopes visitors within its confines; rendering them blind and disoriented, groping their way through a wet, vaporous fog, lost in space.

'...you become the immersed figure in an endless ground, literally the subject of the work.'

I was struck by the scale of the exhibition, excited by the part my tiny black frame played in the gallery matrix, the cyclical movement of the gallery assistants at work, the order that must prevail for a visitor to navigate through the gallery space...I became simultaneously aware of my presence and absence.
Then, at 10, i went home.