A review of a modern art exhibition at the Barbican Centre

What follows is a review of artist Eddie Peake’s exhibition ‘The Forever Loop’.

As I enter Eddie Peake’s exhibition, a stony faced attendant warns me that it contains scenes of ‘live nudity’. Internally I giggle like a childish fool, externally I remain a picture of demure sophistication. I stroll into the hall.

In front of me metal steps, like those you’d expect to see hastily erected on a construction site, lead up to raised scaffold walkway. On the bare, white wall large red painted letters spell out various words, some easy to read, others less so. A dummy of a man, pure white, is sat in a chair. In his hand he holds what appears, to my uncultured eyes, to be a metre-long penis. I nod to myself in appreciation of this novel commentary on the human condition.

 

I walk on. The large semi-circular room is filled with numerous installations, ranging hugely in size and nature. A vast platform spans the open space, but look closely and you might spot a little statue of a bird, or a surrealist imitation of the human form with a Perspex box for a head. Spongebob Squarehead perhaps, or a dissection of mankind’s perpetual tendency toward violence? I recall one critic’s description of the exhibition as an exploration of ‘sexual identity, unrequited desire and how we all become what we are’. My finger strokes my bearded chin.

Turning a corner, I notice a sofa. On it are two naked women. Bewildered guests half-stare, some grin, some shuffle away awkwardly. Without warning one of the women runs in my direction and screams ‘I AM A LADY!’. The other one, wearing only trainers, proceeds to follow her. I admire her clean white shoes, so shiny and new when held up next to my own, and keep walking. A spectral figure in see-through clothes glides past me on rollerskates.

En route to the exit, I pass TV screens, an old-fashioned chair resting on a chessboard floor, and a perspex bear. Out into the crisp autumn eve! I light my pipe.