Clara Hastrup’s Organic Behaviour at LAMB Gallery, London, takes a humorous approach to addressing ideas surrounding the relationship between society and consumption. By doing so Hastrup brings a playfulness to otherwise unplayful objects and a certainly unplayful space. Playfulness thus becomes the overarching theme to this exhibition, physicalised in absurd visual language.
Upon walking into the gallery, you are greeted by a symphony of notes from ‘Prickly Tunes’, a room installation of four hundred cacti connected to individual motors, in proximity to acoustic instrument strings. Inspired by the Fibonacci sequence, the motors spin the cacti at differing times, creating a polyphony of sounds as the spines strike against the acoustic strings. The sounds become the acoustic of the Fibonacci Sequence, as it is this sequence that creates the spiral pattern of the spines that can be seen on the cacti. The use of cacti is an unusual and playful approach to sound making and offers a new function for our house plants.
‘Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Ce-Re-Al’ also creates music, as well as a rather large mess. The title of this installation is a playful pun. As this artwork is about making music with unlikely interactions, Hastrup takes the well-known tonic solfa names of the notes in a major scale and changes the final three names to an abbreviation of the word cereal. As the cereals drop from the box onto the xylophones below, and subsequently onto the floor, the sculptures create their own melody. The installation uses cereal as a tool to make a joke of societal consumption, with Hastrup’s choice of highly sweetened cereal, packaged with bright advertisement to catch public attention, reinforcing the idea of consumerism techniques.
In ‘Fruitplayer (hole 1)’, Hastrup makes a game out of a natural process, using an unusual mini golf hole to reflect the theme of playfulness. On top of a bright blue ramp sits a citrus tree. Gravity and “the wind” decide when to knock the ripening fruit from its tree, for it to then fall and roll along the crazy golf putting green, in the hopes of getting a hole in one. This gives fruit a whole new purpose in our consumption.
All three installations urge you into experience. As the viewer you have an innate urge to film the actions of the objects, to capture a fleeting moment of animation. But it is near impossible to witness, let alone document. You become part of the joke as you wait patiently for this unpredictable moment, which in ‘Fruitplayer (hole 1)’, may not come for a long time. The piece transforms into a shrine that you unintentionally begin to worship.
The setup of the exhibition is purposefully and undeniably messy, with trailing wires that become a safety hazard, to cereal scattered across the floor of the gallery, that you can’t help but to step on. There is a satirical aspect to this setup. The viewer becomes an active agent in creating a mess in what would be a faux pas in the ordinarily pristine setting.Organic Behaviour is a show that will make you chuckle to yourself. It breaks down the seriousness of the art world boundaries. The cheeky playfulness to each installation makes you feel welcome, inviting you as an active participant in the viewing of the work. Here in this gallery, the art of consumerism has never been more fun.
Evie Banks 