When Forms Come Alive

International group exhibition
Hayward Gallery 2024

Curatorial Assistant

Inspired by sources ranging from a dancer’s gesture to the breaking of a wave, from a flow of molten metal to the interlacing of a spider’s web, the artworks in When Forms Come Alive conjure fluid and shifting realms of experience.

Undulating, drooping, erupting, cascading and promiscuously proliferating, these sculptures invite a tactile gaze, and trigger physical responses. In an era when our encounters are increasingly digitised and disembodied, these artworks call to mind the pleasures of gesture and movement, the poetics of gravity and the experience of sensation itself.

Palpably dynamic, they proclaim that nothing in the world stays the same, that everything is moving, seething, changing and transforming.

The exhibition features work by 21 international artists: Ruth Asawa, Nairy Baghramian, Phyllida Barlow, Lynda Benglis, Michel Blazy, Paloma Bosquê, Olaf Brzeski, Choi Jeong Hwa, Tara Donovan, DRIFT, Eva Fàbregas, Holly Hendry, EJ Hill, Marguerite Humeau, Jean-Luc Moulène, Senga Nengudi, Ernesto Neto, Martin Puryear, Matthew Ronay, Teresa Solar Abboud and Franz West.

Curator: Ralph Rugoff
Assistant Curator: Katie Guggenheim

Interview for Something Curated

“Anusha Mistry, from the Hayward Gallery’s curatorial team, tells Something Curated: “Phyllida Barlow described how sculpture can be “restless” because of how the viewer must manoeuvre around it – you can never quite hold on to what it is. With this exhibition we wanted to examine the shapeshifting nature of sculpture and offer visitors an exciting array of works that span several generations of artists whose work harnesses the irregular, the organic, the experiential and the unsettled when it comes to their approach to form.”

01 Installation view of Matthew Ronay, When Forms Come Alive (2024). Photo: Jo Underhill. Courtesy the Hayward Gallery.
02 Installation view of Eva Fàbregas, When Forms Come Alive (2024). Photo: Jo Underhill. Courtesy the Hayward Gallery.
03 Installation view of Michel Blazy, When Forms Come Alive (2024). Photo: Jo Underhill. Courtesy the Hayward Gallery.
04 Installation view of Holly Hendry, When Forms Come Alive (2024). Photo: Jo Underhill. Courtesy the Hayward Gallery
05 Installation view of Franz West, When Forms Come Alive (2024). Photo: Jo Underhill. Courtesy the Hayward Gallery.
06 Installation view of Tara Donovan, When Forms Come Alive (2024). Photo: Jo Underhill. Courtesy the Hayward Gallery.
07 Installation view of Phyllida Barlow, When Forms Come Alive (2024). Photo: Jo Underhill. Courtesy the Hayward Gallery
08 Installation view of EJ Hill, When Forms Come Alive (2024). Photo: Jo Underhill. Courtesy the Hayward Gallery
09 Installation view of Senga Nengudi, When Forms Come Alive (2024). Photo Jo Underhill. Courtesy the Hayward Gallery
10 Installation view of Holly Hendry, When Forms Come Alive (2024). Photo: Jo Underhill. Courtesy the Hayward Gallery

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