25 October 2013

Lutz Bacher

In Lutz Bacher's current exhibition, Black Beauty, the ground floor galleries of the ICA in London are filled with the textures and sounds of blackness. Coal dust crunches under foot and, through a curtain darkly, vibrations of the unknown oscillate in our reality. A fractured mirror reflects a self shattered by darkness and all is framed by the repetition of the final lines from A Midsummer's Night's Dream '...if by chance we shadows have offended...'

Upstairs, all is golden. A horse spins on its plinth as at a fairground carousel, while, next door, an elaborate game of chess is set up with Elvis countering a camel.  It turns out that heaven is easily accessed by a flight of stairs.  We have passed through the black skin of night to a new and brighter reality as the camel passes through the eye of a needle.









Installation shots Lutz Bacher: Black Beauty
25 September - 17 November 2013
Institute of Contemporary Arts, London
Photographs: Mark Blower