Jon Rafman Exhibition
Jon Rafman is an artist of which I have followed for a while through social media and online platforms. This is how I discovered and viewed his work. I think because I consumed his work in such a disposable way, I took Rafmans work for granted. I loved and respected it, but I didn’t always realise its potential. Nor did I realise how well known and respected Rafman was.
7th of October:
Its early – well early for me – I’m mindlessly scrolling through Instagram like I do every morning.
But I came across a sponsored post from Zabludowicz Collection, a gallery that I have heard of before because of its controversy of how it is funded – for an opening night solo exhibition of Jon Rafmans descent work. Anyway; I linked it to a close friend, we made a plan to go that evening.
Fast forward to that evening:
Liam and I walk down Prince of Wales road (which is an ironic name for me, as there is a road with the same name in my home town which is regarded as the “club district”). The building looks more like a grand library, which is what it was originally built for. However it is sandwiched between rows of terrace houses, which seems like a weird juxtaposition, but in London this seems perfectly normal. Its dead on 6pm as we arrive, so the private viewing has just begun. Although, there is no one around. We are the only people there.
Entering though the small white doors, we are greeted with a small square ball pit, filled with pearlescent white balls, with two large flat screen TV’s towering over it, playing my favourite piece by Rafman called ‘Betamale (Still Life)’. A piece about internet culture, and
those that are obsessed by it. We walk though viewing the larger video pieces, until we are led to a small winding corridor which leads to a room hidden behind a black curtain. The room is huge. Like theatre sized. Its pitch black excluding the small spotlights illuminating disfigured sculptures of busts. I quickly realise that this is a maze, the floor is covered with artificial grass and so are the walls. As we wind through the maze we discover more sculptures of busts all made with different textures and materials. The sculptures are disgustingly beautiful, some of them are so silky smooth they look like water, frozen in time. I’ve seen pictures of this series of work online before, and I loved them for their weird beauty and interesting materials. In person I loved them even more, they feel almost edible, but I refrained. They all stand on mirrored plinths up to head hight, so the eyeless faces feel like they are staring back at you. Of course this was done on purpose. They are of humanoid form but none of the actual features of a human, so they feel familiar and relatable yet alien.
In the centre of the maze a giant (I mean about 10 foot tall) gold minator stands disfigured and warped. Its terrifyingly beautiful. A gallery assistant hands me an oculus rift device and headphones, She asks me to stand still while I have the device on. Im transported to an animated hyperreality of the maze that I actually stand within. I feel like I’ve left the gallery and I’m walking through a forrest the could only exist on the internet, possibly in a game. The visuals start to move through the maze until the walls disintegrate, and I’m left standing in what I can only describe as a visual representation of the ether. The gallery assistant taps me on the shoulder to remove the equipment, and I did reluctantly.