I went to see the Juan Munoz show at the Frith Street Gallery consisting of Munoz’s drawing and figurative sculptures. The resin sculptures are installed singularly in each of the gallery’s space. 

These quite haunting sculptures create such tense ambience as if something bad has just happened or is about to happen. Now that I remember it might have contributed to the nightmare I had last night, which tells a story of me riding a bike and signalling to turn to the right, and the cyclist in front of me did the same but instead the car behind him hurled him under the car and they cyclist dropped dead on the scene whereas the driver’s lower body got chopped off completely. Sorry, I’ve digressed. The sculptures on the ground floor complement really nicely with the line graphite drawings, they together bounce this tense and still moment off each other. I really like it. 

En route to FSG, I saw a big sign which says “TIM SHAW”, and I jumped slightly immediately and said to myself “BRILLIANT!”. I knew that he was preparing for a show from that video I saw on the Falmouth website and I could not believe that I just stumbled upon it by chance! So I went into this gallery called the Riflemaker gallery which is in a really old building in the middle of Soho - floor creaking, narrow staircase and all that. 

Just one comment - WHAT A BRILLIANT SHOW! I loved it. There are not that many contemporary artists that choose to do realistic or semi realistic figurative sculptures now but he’s done it so well! So contemporary, haunting, and with really interesting use of materials. Love it! I especially like this Soul Snatchers Possession Maquette. I actually prefer the maquette more than the lifesize sculptures.

I think I will go again sometime next week and see it again. 

Laura Buckley’s installation at Cell Project Space is like a sanctuary, hidden away from the hustle and bustle of Hackney Road. You walk into a chilly, dark room expecting nothing only to be confronted with a giant hexagonal tunnel sculpture, Fata Mogana, disturbed by video projections seemingly coming from all angles. The insides of the tunnel sculpture are made with mirrors, thus retracting the imagery being projected into the tunnel from the back via a meshed frosted sheet. 

Walking into the tunnel was like slowly immersing yourself into another reality, a reality made up of distorted imagery. This another-worldness  is further accentuated by the multifaceted interior as a result of the hexagonal nature of the tunnel. The video is being twisted, multiplied, elongated and distorted. The images move around the facets inside of the tunnel creating a life of their own. You look up, down and sideways, trying to make sense of your surroundings but you soon realize that it is quite impossible. And quite rightly so as it is for such transience that make her work so special. What is originally subjective documentation of moving images are now being transformed into a mind-altering world of its own, completely changing how one’s original perception of the video.

Buckley’s work is inherently magnetic in quality that draws and absorbs the viewer’s attnetion. I can stand there inside the tunnel sculpture forever, and indeed it does feel like a long time the mere couple of minutes that I was in there. And it is also puzzling. It makes you think and question your surrounding, what’s real and what’s not, or as a matter of fact, is any of this real? How is this made possible And where are the images on the walls, outside of the sculpture, almost like a mirage, coming from?

At the end you come out of Buckley’s show, feeling that you have travelled far and away from the reality that you were in, dazzled by the lights and imagery, walk back out into Hackney Road, you begin to wonder if this is, in fact, unreal, afterall.