July-August 2010

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To rationalise the irrational and materialise the immaterial nature of the creative brain would be a task only attempted by the brave or the batty. But that is just what the exhibition ‘Walking in My Mind’ at London’s Hayward Gallery attempts to do. Walking around the installations that depict the artists’ creative mindscapes one is enticed, in an attempt to relate to the works, to either pamper or panic oneself with self-analysis or indulge the artist’s invitation to be psychologically dissected. The exhibition is made up of 10 self-portraits that immerse the viewer in a symbolic medley of sound, video and mixed media – mostly objects that you would expect to find at a flea market.

Yoshimoto Nara, one of three Japanese artists exhibiting, can be analysed as a boyish introvert through his work My Drawing Room (Bedroom Included). The artist’s playful naivety is expressed in magna and anime (Japanese comic books) inspired drawings that litter the floor of a fragile makeshift shack. The shed blocks the viewer’s investigations into the space, which also contains drawing crayons and treasures evoking the innocence of Nara’s childhood. Such is a comparably simple explanation of the creative mind wherein the artist displays his creative impulses from his youth. Jason Rhoade’s The Creation Myth, in direct contrast, is overwhelmingly complex and relishes its (perhaps unnecessarily) explicit cardboard turds and hardcore porn. Despite the inclusion of a map, I made little sense of the wooden poles plastered in genitals, trailing wires and random jumble-sale objects. The entirety, however, repeats a clichéd view of the brain – as a machine with a central throbbing hub spewing dendrites that sprawl across the gallery.

Keith Tyson, a Turner Prize-winning artist, articulates himself mainly with words in his Studio Wall Drawings, consisting of 75 posters, framed and hung in a grid. A colossal mind map with a moulded figure of an eager youth pressed against it are accompanied by words such as, ‘Today I realised a reversal of the polarity between fact and fiction’. Revealed is Tyson’s eloquence in the verbal and symbolic, rather than the visual and sensual.

Thomas Hirschhorn has created a metaphorical cave in which the viewer clambers around a gaffer-tape labyrinth-turned-library strewn with symbolism. Cans of cola, political doctrines and tin-foil mannequins attached to sticks of tin foil explosives are scattered around. Entitled Cavemanman, the work succeeds in being visually exciting and intellectually appealing for the inquisitive visitors to the cave. The aesthetic thrill of Hirschhorn’s piece is also to be found in Yayoi Kusama’s installation in which both the inside and outside of the concrete building has been infected with spots. The inflatables that protrude from the floor, like red spotted lava lamp globules, convey Kusama’s mental affliction – a plague of polka dot hallucinations (pictured above).

As always with such exhibitions, two-dimensional work is rare and often is dashed past as many head for the multi-sensual installations. Charles Avery, however, holds our attention with his informal ink drawings; part of a work entitled The Islanders, shown at the Parasol Unit last year. The audience is encouraged to be an explorer and a hunter in their travels around an imaginary island, described by the artist as a ‘philosophical allegory’. The creative brain is exercised and thus explained.

Upon leaving the exhibition, spots imprinted on my retina, I felt yet more perplexed about the process of the creative mind. However, I felt that the mystery shrouding how artists create had been reinforced, and from that I derived a strange sense of satisfaction. ‘Walking in My Mind’ is a thought-provoking exhibition, and certainly worth a visit.

‘Walking in My Mind’ is at the Hayward Gallery, London, until 6 September.

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