When we say big, we mean physically huge. Gargantuan. If Andreas Gursky at the Hayward Gallery has you looking to supersize scales, hold on tight. There’s no jostling in the crowd to catch a glimpse of these three major players – from monumental Pop Art works way ahead of their time to a three storey brutalist installation from the V&A and a solo show debut from a modern Texan great. This spring, the scale becomes part of the effect – it’s experiential, not passive. Strap in, we’re going stratospheric.
There’s making an entrance, and then there’s filling 20 extra-tall shipping containers to house your work. Now on display at Gagosian Britannia Street, Diversifolia is Nancy Rubins’ first solo show in London, and her heaviest work to date. Nancy’s gravity-defying clusters of sculpture spiral upwards, incorporating cast-iron creatures and steel cordons, creating works as big as trees, comparable to ships and nigh-on-impossible to tear a gaze away from. Go see for yourself at the Gagosian until 14th April.
London’s love-hate relationship with brutalism is probably one of the city’s defining architectural characteristics. So when The Victoria and Albert Museum salvaged a 9 x 5.5 metre section of the Robin Hood Gardens social housing estate from the demolition site, the move raised eyebrows. Fragments from the flats will be re-assembled at this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale. Titled Ruin In Reverse, the exhibition will see precast concrete elements from the facade of the building erected over a three-storey scaffold structure designed by Arup, the engineers of the original building.
And at Denmark’s ARoS art museum, late American pop artist James Rosenquist arrives en masse this summer. Having worked closely with the museum to develop the show up until his death in 2017, Painting as Immersion sees more than 50 of the artist’s billboard-size works presented in one of the biggest ever exhibitions of his work in Europe. Reaching 3-5 metres in height (one work even extends over 27 metres), James’ monumental formats are all-encompassing feats of pop art, way ahead of their time.
Go big or go home! Just not in one of Nancy Rubins’ shipping containers…
