Gallery #2: Whitechapel Gallery

     As one of our three additional galleries, we visited Whitechapel Gallery on Wednesday, January 12th.  I have to admit that I did not like the gallery space as soon as I walked in and saw there were only about nine rooms, half of which were closed due to renovations.  I did however enjoy two of the pieces.  The first was by Claire Barclay and was called Shadow Spans (2010) in one of the rooms on the first floor.  Her installation took up the entire space and consisted of black door frames, spilled dirt and pottery on the floor and large fabrics draped over the structure.  Barclay's work incorporates the relationship between the materials and making, and this piece dealt with the environment of urban life and ideas of exposure and observation.  I really liked this piece because I felt the whole room has a certain mood as soon as you stepped into it and I immediately walked right through and around the piece to get a sense of what that mood might be.  The black frames reminded me of a foundation in a construction cite or the very basic structure of something not yet filled in.  Therefore for me the piece was exploring themes of abandonment and emptiness, because while a foundation is usually the start of something, the feel of the piece made me feel as if it would never be finished.  I also got a sense of mystery as the drapery seemed to be hiding part of the structure and appeared to be covering something up.  I liked Barclay's work because I was able to draw my own interpretation from her sculpture.
     The other piece I really liked was in the upper galleries, and it was titled Current Disturbance (1996) by Mona Hatoum.  I could hear the piece through the doors before I could see it, and once inside the noise intensified, proving to be a buzzing sort of electrical sound.  The huge square structure was made of wood and wire cages that each contained one light bulb.  The bulbs were all synced to light up or get brighter or switch on and off while the electrical buzz that you could not ignore reflected what was happening with the light bulbs. Hatoum's piece dealt with themes of "surveillance and control," and I definitely felt this way because each light bulb appeared to be trapped in its individual wire cage.  I also loved this piece because it had high contrast between light and dark (as sometimes the bulbs would go completely out) and between noise and silence (when the bulbs went out the buzz completely ceased as well).  In the dark and silence, the viewer was left with their ears ringing until the bulbs flared up again.  This was my favorite moment of the lighting circuit and the whole piece because that one short moment of dark held such great potential.