Matthew Barney and Igshaan Adams at The Hayward Gallery

I have always enjoyed the things the Hayward Gallery does, the first time I went was after the first lockdown and saw an exhibition about trees. It soothed the soul. This time around after the 2nd/3rd? Lockdown that the Uk has had to endure I went along because there were two exhibitions on with two artists I hadn’t heard of before. American artist Matthew Barney and South African Igshaan Adams are an unusual pairing but I was keen to explore how these two artists might be connected. The most obvious connecting tissue being nature, but looking deeper into the intertwining wooded trees of Idaho, Barneys home state and Adams’ woven- floating sculptures is there meaning in the madness?

The exhibition starts with Barney and a feature length film which explores the Myth of Diana and Action from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Here we see a modern day Diana dressed in hunting gear accompanied by two nymphs as they explore the wilderness. Diana watches from the sidelines as her nymphs dance in the hot springs, all the while looking around making sure no one is watching - ominously cleaning her gun. In this feature we also see the artist at work, we see his process for creating the works centred around this film. The works are etched onto copper plates before being electro-lighted to create stunning effects.

‘Diana: State 4’ 2018

Some of the works are unusual, they look like trees but aren’t trees, they are inlayed with copper a material that is highly prized as an excellent conductor of electricity. These sculptures glisten and gleam, take for example ‘Virgins’ 2008. You have on one side a gold looking tree that’s been ripped from the ground held up by two planks of wood. Laying across this is the copper cast tree. Their roots are twisted, knarled - their bark of dripping from the wood underneath. There is a sense of decay in this piece. The woods are hiding something- something that looks awfully like a rifle. Like Actaeon after his encounter with Diana, these trees… are they transforming or regressing into a gun? Either way, there’s nowhere to hide.

‘Virgins’ 2008

Some of these etchings are interesting. It’s not everyday that you get to see art that is quite literally electric. The copper plates are startling, the images that have been etched onto them by Barney have either had their definition tightened by the electric treatment, or their meaning disappears altogether. In this case we’ll look at ‘Redoubt’ 2018. I have no idea what this image was supposed to be, and I almost think you’re not supposed to. It looks more like the details you see on trees, the lichen, the bark, the moss crawling and growing and expanding all over the place.

‘Redoubt’ 2018

But some you could clearly see what was going on, in recent times there have been attempts at reintroducing wolves back into the wilderness, traditionally killed by farmers and hunters, these reintroduction schemes are an attempt to conserve and safeguard the wolves for the future. Whether successful or not. Not wolves have a special meaning in the grand scheme of this exhibition. Because Actaeon was torn to pieces by his dogs, sure wolves and dogs aren’t technically the same thing, but close enough. In ‘Reintroduction State 1’ 2018 we can clearly see a wolf stalking through the trees in the snow. I love the bubbling effect on these copper plates, it adds mystery, a mythical transformation has happened. It’s almost romantic. That is, until you see yourself reflected back at you in the bright, shiny copper. Diana has sent her wolves and they’re coming for you.

‘Reintroduction State 1’ 2018

Igshaan Adams ‘Kicking Dust’ was inspired by the tribal dances he saw in the Northern Cape as a child. His woven fabrics and floating sculptures are explorations of culture, race and sexuality. When you enter the room, you get a small sense of vertigo. It feels like you’re in a plane surrounded by clouds looking down on the cast landscape below you. One can almost see the haze created from the hustle and bustle on the earth below. Feel the heat and the soft freshness of the clouds as you glide past.

‘Kicking Dust’ 2021

But let’s talk, in all seriousness, about the art itself. Interwoven carpets line the walls and the floor. The main piece which includes ‘destiny lines’ and full of beads, shells, plastics, different coloured fabrics, all tightly packed to create an enormous mass. this, I believe, is the main piece about race. The pieces of woven material covers various parts of the floor, they’re not all connected they’re just enormous pieces as part of a larger whole. And that’s the point, despite our many races, black, white, asian etc. we are all interwoven, all of our lives connect. We all make up this enormous fabric of life called ‘humanity’. All under the same sky. It’s quite beautiful in a way.

Details of ‘Kicking Dust’ 2021

Nothing is as it seems with these sculptures. These bright shining clouds line the ceiling as though floating, meandering all over the room. But they are made of stronger stuff than just condensed water. To quote Shakespeare ‘We are such stuff as dreams are made on’ because inside the metal wire ringlets are beads and earrings and glass, all daintily crowded around one another. The strong contrast of the harsh metal wiring and the gentle glittering of the beads ask a question: What am I? Is this feminine? Or masculine? Or is this something in-between? Who knows. It is best not to dwell too much on dreams, for we could get lost in them, tangled in the wire mesh with the glittering glass beads. 

So what is the connector between the two? Well they are both transformative and neither are what they seem.Barney explores the wilderness of his native Idaho throughout the metamorphoses of Diana and her nymphs, the pieces are poetic, even though you are continuously stalked by the eyes of Diana and the slow but constant pace of the wolves. Adams, looks at how we are connected and what our place is, but he looks in the broad sense and the microscopic, even though the devil is in the details.  They both play on what you're looking at and why. They both sparkle and shine, but woe betide those who look too deep because you might get caught.