iSerpentine Gallery · Kensington
Justin Caguiat's first major UK exhibition brings together painting, sculpture, printmaking, sound and film in a site-responsive installation, including thermochromic paintings that shift with heat and light and bronze bells that ring in continually changing sequences.
Bronze bells cast as flowers and plant seeds are installed through Serpentine South, struck by pistons on a loop that follows the rules of English change ringing, to a score by Lily Pickett. When they ring, they trigger heating pads behind copper panels painted with heat-sensitive pigment, and the pictures shift colour and form.
You walk in past a body made of bread, crumbling at the entrance. Plasterboard has been stripped from three rooms, so the big unstretched paintings hang off the bare metal grid against the original brick. In a city where your deposit rides on every Blu Tack mark, the Serpentine did this to its own walls.
The Standard gave it four stars, called it "a disorientating experience which rewards time and patience", and warned that the wall bells often make you jump, "so be warned those on dates trying to play it cool". Entry is free, and curator Natalia Grabowska leads a free tour on 14 November at noon (booking required).
Margolanak termokromikoak dira; beraz, kolorea aldatu egiten zaie gelako beroaren eta argiaren arabera. Brontzezko kanpaiek, berriz, etengabe aldatzen diren segidak jotzen dituzte – ingelesez, change ringing esaten zaio kanpai-jotze mota horri. Justin Caguiaten Erresuma Batuko lehen erakusketa handia, doan, Kensington Gardens-en.
The thermochromic copper panels
Heat-sensitive paintings that change colour when the bells set off their heating pads, or when the room warms up.
The flower bells
Bronze bells in the shapes of flowers and seeds, rung by pistons in Lily Pickett's continuous change-ringing score.
The bread figures
A human body made of bread lies crumbling at the entrance, and in another room an untreated bread angel pinned to the wall is cracking as it dries.
The Zodiac Machine paintings
Mural-sized unstretched canvases hang from the stripped walls' metal grid; look for a girl falling through space and a skeleton surfacing from gold and amber.
The back-room cinema
A 16mm film by Caguiat, screened in a small cinema made from a seldom-used space at the back of the building.
You startle easily: mechanical bells on the walls ring without warning throughout the gallery.