ZAHA HADID



Of course I love Zaha Hadid's buildings - I used to work opposite the Olympic Aquatics Centre in Stratford and the Evelyn Grace Academy is in my Brixton neighbourhood - but since becoming aware of her drawings and paintings via a documentary, I've been eager for the chance to see them. The Hadid-designed Serpentine Slacker gallery gives this chance.

Her thought process can be followed from the small sketchbooks to vast canvases on display. Semi-representational but essentially abstract images that might be hard to process without the insight of her prep work and the completed visions of her architecture.  
Endless curved lines and harmoniously scattered blocks of colour. Like plans for a future that never happened. The influence of Constructivism taken to more beautiful places. A piece called London 2066 (shown above, from 1991) looks like a gloriously updated version of the EastEnders titles, with a Vangelis theme tune.

The artworks are the buildings deconstructed, floating and swirling but paused - the VR of 4 of the pieces deconstruct the paintings themselves and the over-lapping formations come alive. I would've liked the option to choose various audio tracks. I wonder how different it would feel experiencing the visuals with doom-laden music or cheerful summer sounds, for example.

Difficult not to be inspired by the flood of ideas that seem to have poured from Zaha Hadid.








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