Dahn Vo: Chicxulub

Beautiful exhibition at White Cube Bermondsey of new work by Danh Vo.

The exhibition had made the whole gallery and the square outside into a calming installation merging ecclesiastical salvage with planting and working wood burning stoves. That description doesn’t do it justice.

I love the way, from the dark entrance on, you had a sense of wondering what you were going to find. From there you cold smell the wood burners and you could also feel the heat from one as you walked up the central corridor towards a room with a tree in it. What’s not to love! 

My favourite room, shown here, you peer into over a pile of logs, which turn out to be an American flag which has collapsed. Once in the room there are artfully arranged fragments of statutes lit from above, often incorporating live and dead plants alongside larger rounds beds of plants. One wall was made up old architectural features presumably. from their ornateness, from a church.

I have no idea what it meant even after watching the video on the website. It spoke to me of time passing and the way the past lives in the present but that could just be the historian speaking. It didn’t seem to matter what it meant it was beautiful.

Closes 2 November 2020

Review

Guardian


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