I didn’t know about this artist before. I wasn’t even planning a visit to The Hayward. It was one of those days when you just stumble across something really worth finding. Semâ Bekirovic often plays with chance in her work so it feels rather apt that I found her in this way.
I loved the paint videos, Stuff (2010), where objects sink into invisibility as they became immersed in white paint; it was lovely to watch them disappear, eventually and without a trace. These videos made me think about existence and form, where something exists and then it doesn't because its body disappears, what trace does it leave? Does something still exist just because it is no longer visable? What is its legacy? It's the only thing that disturbs me about death, that your body is still there even though 'you' aren't. When I go I want to dissapear, POOF! I don't want my body to succeed my being, I don't want to leave a trace, I want to evaporate back into the ether, to return to my source, but immediately, I don't want to decay. If possible at that moment i'd like all memories, any images. of me to be gone too, removed from the minds of others. To come into being and then out again.
And then there’s Event Horizon, a dot on the landscape walks closer and closer to you until it blots out all light. It made me a laugh and also made me choke on my laughter. There was warmth there, I guess because as the dot became closer you found it had legs which humanised the image but then when it covered all vision so all that’s left was black and you felt the darkness – it sort of made me go cold, again from form to nothingness. All a bit Blaise Pascal really. So, if you can take a visit to the Hayward Project Space before 25 July 2011.
