The Curve at Barbican is among one of the finest - if not one of the most difficult - spaces in London to fill. A cavernous space that wraps around the rear of the Concert Hall, when artists utilise the space to its maximum potential, there isn't a gallery in London that can top it. Chinese artist Song Dong is the latest artist to be commissioned by Barbican Centre and he has taken the maxim 'to fill the space' really very literally.
For this, his first major solo UK exhibition, Song Dong has received and put on exhibition over 10,000 household items collected by his mother over the course of her lifetime - everything from metal pots, plastic bowls, blankets, bottle caps, toothpaste tubes and foam sandals. The effect is astounding.
In one part a comment on the Chinese Cultural Revolution, where the dictum 'Waste not' was key; a means of survival above all else. In another aspect, this is an intensely display of the personal archive of a woman - the artist's mother - defined by the objects that she surrounded herself with. A hoarder, undoubtedly, who collected to assuage depression following the death of her husband, Song Dong began thereafter working with his mother to create this work, which functions in a third aspect as a space for her to put her memories and history in order.
Song Dong: Waste Not is at The Curve, Barbican until 12 June 2012.
