Pope.L: Hospital
At the turn of the millennium Pope.L sat on top of a toilet, which was on top of a scaffold tower, while he ingested pieces of the Wall Street Journal. That performance art, minus the artist, has now been reimagined as three toilet towers, toppled like dominoes and carefully set within the confines of a tarpaulin that’s meticulously edged off. The stark, passive divide between art and visitor may be breached by the sprinkling of dust, but the white powder blends so seamlessly with all the white elements that the residue on your hand is what you’ll mostly notice.
I find performance art to be tedious and confusing even at its best, but when there’s no active performance other than random interventions that may or may not be made by an audience, what has the art become? That’s the challenge Pope.L gave himself in rethinking his works. He wasn’t going to perform them, nor did he want others to recreate them. There are also no photos or videos of his past performances other than the cover art on the handout. Attending this show feels a bit like being shown a West End stage set without being allowed to watch the play.
At the opening the artist talked about “care… precarity... getting older and being aware of issues with your body.” He talked about powerlessness, elaborating at length on the “growing intimacy with your body” that comes with age. He’s now 68, and seemed to be preoccupied with aging and ideas of decay. It might not have been the most uplifting artist explanation I’ve ever heard, but it was certainly enlightening regarding the works I was about to experience.
Leaving behind the ‘ghosts of performance art past’ in the main gallery, the Fire Station across the road welcomes you with vibrant marigold heads, scattered across the dark floor of the entrance. They’re to be replenished weekly, since they’ll decay and be trampled on throughout the run of the show. Even though I knew this, I was awkwardly apologetic to the staff as I carefully tiptoed around them until eventually, tentatively and tenuously, I stepped on one. Others were less reserved. The floor was littered with smashed gold petals by the time I had left.
Upstairs in Gallery 4 the strong stench of rubbing alcohol evokes the familiar unease of being in a hospital. American-style water jugs, the kind given to patients, are stacked along a wall like a cattle trough. They block your access to a lone work of art. It’s an uncomfortable room to occupy, especially when you know you can walk out at any time, unlike most who are in care. Two other rooms — one dark, one essentially empty — also evoke discomfort, but more so from confusion about what they’re supposed to mean.
Shown without performance and presented with limited documentation, the installations are mostly left open to interpretation and the results are mixed. The lone clue is the title of the show but even that presents contradictions. Hospitals are places of healing and care, filled with the frail, feeble and ill. People are born in them, and people die in them. Accumulation and decay.
Some artists become obsessed with legacy, yet in his first institutional solo exhibition in London Pope.L has boldly stripped his work of human life. The elements are old, literally leaking and coated with dust. He said “the works are about powerlessness” but one thing you learn with age is that the strength in surrender is often the only way forward.
Plan your visit
‘Hospital’ runs until 11 Feb.
Free
Visit southlondongallery.org and follow @southlondongallery on Instagram for more info about the venue.
Visit the William Pope.L Wikipedia page for more info about the artist.
PLUS…
Check the What’s On page so you don’t miss any other great shows closing soon.
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