Great exhibition at the Tate St Ives.. pity the balloons have so much static they attract hair.. so that when I entered the installation there was other peoples hair stuck on the balloons that smacked me in the face. Yuk. Hair-face!
It was an amazing experience. Ok it did elicit the old "a three year old could do this" response from my (non-artist) husband, but I didn't care that we didn't see eye-to-eye on it (I could've so easily lost him in 8ft of aerated latex but I needed the lift back and the the keys to the cottage!). We nearly came to blows. I tried to explain that the theory behind such a supposedly simple idea was very complex and interesting and involved regarding the human condition and all the senses, but he was still remembering the Vorticists theories that were so loud and furious and ringing that he probably still had those petulant voices ringing round his head from when I dragged him round Tate Britain.
The balloon installation could scarcely be in a more appropriate place. Bounded on one side by seaside sunlight and the other by an "audience" looking down from the corridors above, the crescent shaped trench seemed at once open and enclosed, private and watched, free and kept in, authoritarian and childlike.
There may be those who criticise Martin Creed (I will go into that another day), but in this particular exercise he really suceeded in making me think of myself as a lone individual, hemmed in by all sides, listening to the laughter of others but not being part of it and being seperated from it by so much airy bulk. The balloons were like all those things that prevent you from progress, and I realised I was anxious once the novelty had worn off. I was lost, I had lost my husband, and I couldn't find a way out. I envied those who where whooping and throwing their arms in the air with childish glee, scooping the balloons out and throwing them as hard as they could. There was a brief moment when I allowed myself this joy.. and then I became a scared adult again. I wish the joy of being alone within the cells of my "womb", able to think and play with innocence and ignorance, unemcumbered by behavioural or psychological restraints even in a physically trapping environment, had stayed with me.
