"On Tuesday night, I noticed a window where there wasn’t one before"
Belong to the home of new art, culture and ideas. Know first, book first, see first, and pay less.
Sign up for regular updates about the ICA's programme, special events and offers.
ICA Members can buy tickets online at discounted Members' prices by signing in.
Date: 14 September 2006
"On Tuesday night, I noticed a window where there wasn’t one before"
On Tuesday night, I noticed a window where there wasn't one before: a thin strip of light at the bar end of the concourse, and a new view of the lower gallery through it. Piles of rubble, bricks and plaster, on the floor, and where there was a wall there are now windows. Windows looking out onto the Mall. But it was dark, and I couldn't tell how many curious people were outside looking in...
On Wednesday the rest of the office took a trip down to the gallery to have a look. I didn't make it till Thursday lunchtime, by which time several members of the galleries team were standing around scaffolding, and the inside of the gallery had been pretty much taken to bits, gone.
This is the way with get-ins and get-outs at the ICA: works suddenly appear and disappear. One day there's a pinkish stream of Anish Kapoor's blood coming out of the wall and the next there's a sticking plaster over it, as the inside of the white cube is scrubbed clean, sterilised, and made ready again for the next show.
This time it looks like they're scrubbing out the white cube itself. But this isn't renovation. It's the next show, Cerith Wyn Evans' take my eyes and through them see you, which involves a homage of sorts to the ICA itself, a homage that involves removing a large part of the inside of the inside.
I'm new here, so I don't feel the history of the place running through me the way it does for some people. But having first come across Cerith in the context of his film work in David Curtis's mindblowingly brilliant Century of Artists' Film in Britain at Tate Britain I'm quite excited to hear that there's a new film work in the exhibition.