The Serpentine Gallery is definitely one of London’s odder art galleries. Sitting among trees and lakes in the middle of Kensington Gardens, it’s probably best-known for its Pavilion, designed anew by a different architect each year: an enormous inflatable bulb of a white roof, last year; a building buried under a hill, before that. 2007’s Pavilion is due in August, a strange spiralling public laboratory, but until then the Serpentine is home to exhibitions fitting its oddness: hugely looming and strangely organic parasols, gorgeous projecting light shows, pale Icelandic photography.
(Picture of last year’s Pavilion by lwr.)
The light show, the world premiere of Paul Chan’s The 7 Lights, is in its last week. Chan’s work consists of video projected into rooms, their flat surfaces or corners or ceilings, full of shifting shadow and light. His images are framed on the floors and walls as if they were the light of unseen windows, silhouetted versions of a mysterious world, sometimes organic, more often angular and intriguing. The six videos in the exhibition are each fourteen minutes long, but it’s the experience of standing in the rooms in front of them, not the detail of any individual video, that is affecting: the sense of motion and strange shadows, ascending.
Once Chan’s exhibition is over, it will be time for Zaha Hadid and Patrik Schumacher installation outside the gallery in Kensington Gardens. The three identical parasols, each one five and a half metres high, will be set up for the Serpentine’s annual fundraising Summer Party on the 11th of July, but they’ll remain up and accessible to all for a week following the event.
And after the installation, next up is an exhibition by Icelandic artist Hreinn Fridfinnsson. The gallery’s being cagey about what Fridfinnsson’s exhibition will actually show, but his work is usually sparse and elegant, ranging from photography through installations and found objects. So even if you miss the Chan light show then the Serpentine will still be worth a look, if you just wait for the next strange exhibition to open.
The 7 Lights: Serpentine Gallery, Kensington Gardens. Until 1 July, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. Entry free.
Installation for Kensington Gardens: Outside the Serpentine Gallery, Kensington Gardens. Whenever the park is open, 12 July to 21 July. Entry free.
Hreinn Fridfinnsson exhibition: Serpentine Gallery, Kensington Gardens. 17 July to 2 September, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. Entry free.
