“Really the main theme behind this exhibition is resist the theme” says Bryony Hewetson, front of house manger at 176 Zabludowicz Collection. She is talking about The Library of Babel, a display of contemporary art which while it may be theme-less has a distinguished literary inspiration, being named after a short story by the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.
Borges’ story imagines the world as a library containing every possible arrangement of words and alphabets, some apparently meaningless, others supposedly crystal clear. Visitors wander through this Babel searching for their own stories and ways of interpreting the world. Anna-Catharina Gebbers, a guest curator at the Zabludowicz Collection decided to try and recreate Borges’ library in a more visual form, selecting art works using only a few simple rules including the Borges-like criteria that each letter of the alphabet must be represented in the chosen artists’ initials.
As Hewetson points out abandoning the idea of a theme both rebels against our human urge to order and control and gives it free rein as each visitor can follow any route through the exhibition – there is no beginning or end – and give their own meaning to as many or as few of the exhibits as they like. This free form approach works well with the exhibition space, an imposing nineteenth century ex-Methodist chapel with a main hall and mezzanine surrounded by an array of smaller rooms, corridors and wonky stone stairs that invite you to wander and explore.
As it was a sunny day I headed up to the light-filled mezzanine which is fitted with a set of terraced steps/mini-platforms where sculptures and installations are displayed and you can climb around and see pieces from above and below and right alongside. To me this chance to display and view pieces from different levels emphasised the magnetic quality of a work by Barnaby Hosking. At first glance this black resin sculpture of a naked woman appears to be facing nothing more than a dark oblong screen, a doorway that hypnotises her, her eyes fixed on this singular destiny. Depending on the angle from which you approach her she e/merges from what still seems to be a slab of opaque darkness. Then a slight movement, a flicker of light reveals some sort of activity going on just beyond the door’s threshold. From the movements of a pair of disembodied hands a body takes shape – limbs, head, hair – and you realise you are watching the artist making the staring sculptural woman standing beside you.
There is a strong lucky dip element to wandering through this exhibition because it is so varied, encompassing sculpture, collage, painting, video and photography. There are big names like Tracey Emin and Gerhard Richter (picture above) and works by dozens of artists I’d certainly never heard of.
I came across an exquisite photo of a woodcock by Edgar Leciejewski, the pattern of its feathers recorded in as much detail as in a painting by a nineteenth century naturalist yet giving a fleeting, hallucinatory impression like oil floating on water.
Down in the main hall David Thorpe’s House for Art Lovers seemed to me to have a satisfying number of literary connections for a piece included in an exhibition inspired by a story. Thorpe’s house looks like Noah’s ark impaled on a mountain, the whole scene trapped in a Cinderella-sleep behind a screen of brambles. As if the Biblical/fairytale overtones are not enough Thorpe has slipped a few dried, pressed seed heads into his picture. These reminded me of Konstantin Paustovsky, an undeservedly neglected writer who described the Black Sea port of Odessa shortly after the Russian revolution as smelling of “acacias, dry seaweed, the camomile in the cracks of the sea wall”.
So did I manage to “resist the theme” and the temptation to try and impose order on this random selection of artwork? Well yes pretty much, apart from saying that many of the exhibits do just cry out to have a story told about them.
The Library of Babel is on until 9th May at 176 Zabludowicz Collection, 176 Prince of Wales Road, London NW5 3PT
Image: http://sauer-thompson.com/conversations/archives/RichterG2.jpg
