30.09.09-10.01.10
For his first solo exhibition in the UK, Polish artist Robert Kusmirowski transformed The Curve into a World War Two-era bunker. This highly atmospheric installation – featuring a warren of mysterious rooms and a draisine running along a track that disappeared into a dark tunnel – transported viewers to another reality.
29.05.09-30.08.09
Clemens von Wedemeyer’s dramatic film installation The Fourth Wall explored the uncertain distinction between fact and fiction. Set within the architectural spaces of the Barbican Estate, eight interrelated films elaborate on the discovery of the Tasaday people on the Philippine island of Mindanao in the early 1970s.
11.02.09-10.05.09
Peter Coffin played with our perception of space and perspective in a video installation that projected a 360- degree aerial view of Japanese gardens along the wall of the gallery. The shifts in scale and multiple points of focus were combined to give the viewer an abstract and heightened sense of reality.
09.10.08-18.01.09
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer installation Frequency and Volume was composed of 48 radios. On entering the space, participants’ shadows were each monitored by a video tracking system that each tuned in to a radio frequency, changing channels as you moved around the gallery - the human body effectively becoming a virtual antenna!
25.06.08-21.09.08
Huang created a new installation that explored the complex imperial history between Britain and China in the 19th century, focusing on the Opium Wars. The exhibition took its title Frolic from the name of a ship built to transport goods between British India, China and Great Britain, and as such serves as an allegory for modern-day global capitalism.
01.03.08-01.06.08
Hans Schabus installation Next Time I’m Here, I’ll be There took inspiration from the fact that the length of The Curve wall mirrors that of a large aeroplane, and recreated this by installing 461 chairs, arranged at a 90 degree angle along the wall. The chairs were taken from the Barbican Centre to provide an archaeology of design history.
04.10.07-20.01.08
Shirana Shahbazi created a visually stunning installation that combined imagery from various genres of art, and reproduced them as dramatic wall paintings and digital photographic prints mounted on the wall of The Curve. By transposing the imagery into a style associated with another culture, Shahbazi challenged viewers’ expectations and explored the complexity of identity.
24.05.07-02.09.07
Marjetica Potrc’s installation Forest Rising created an evocation of Amazonian life in the twenty-first century. This ‘island community’ floated on 40 trees, and included a field, pier, helicopter platform and a school, complete with solar panelling and satellite dish, demonstrating how rural living can offer a model for the future.
19.02.07-29.04.07
Jeppe Hein created a large-scale roller coaster that weaved, looped and double dipped through the entire length of The Curve. The thrill of the ride began when visitors entered the gallery, triggering a sensor which launched a white PVC ball onto the metal track. As more viewers entered the gallery, more balls were released, bringing life, motion and sound into the space.
27.09.06-14.01.07
Known for his playful, large-scale architectural interventions, Richard Wilson took the familiar and makes it spectacular. In his dramatic three-part installation for The Curve, Wilson bored holes into the well-loved icon of British motoring - the London Taxi, crushed a burger van and spun a caravan on its axis.
11.05.06-16.07.06
Tomas Saraceno’s installation featured a video shot from a ring of 32 cameras floating on the world's largest salt lake, Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, and projected onto the wall of the gallery. Creating a stunning panorama in which the viewer was immersed in, the project continued Saraceno's exploration of airborne communities as a solution to the world's exploding population.
