London-based artist Eddie Peake’s new exhibition ‘The Forever Loop’ opened earlier this month at the Barbican Centre in London. We sent our good friend the Shoreditch Gentleman to check it out.
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.
Forever loop is based at the Barbican Centre in London. It is free to enter, and will be open until 10 January 2016.
Like Max Klinger (aka the Shoreditch Gentleman) on Facebook: https://twitter.com/MrMax_K
