Laura Lima: Sketch Review – If everything’s on wheels, why isn’t this show going anywhere? | art

HeyOne of the worst things contemporary art can make you do is think seriously about stupid things. Sure, sometimes a urinal is beautiful, a shed is interesting, and an empty room is a container for endless ideas. But sometimes, it doesn’t have a deeper meaning worth searching for. Sometimes it’s a little silly.

Brazilian conceptual scientist Laura Lima prefers to describe this as absurd. Her show at the ICA – her first UK solo show despite decades of international exhibitions and biennial appearances – is full of surreal encounters, all aiming to shake you out of your mundane mental rut (“our habitual patterns of attention”) and find meaning in the unexpected.

Obviously, how unexpected you can expect life drawing lessons at an art gallery depends on your expectations. It was completely expected, I guess. But this is different: not only are you allowed to participate, but everything is on wheels. crazy. All the easels and models are placed on movable wooden platforms, which zigzag independently around the room, making you crane your neck and turn your head to see the model.

It’s all about randomness and chaos, the bulletin says, but how random and chaotic really is? All references to chance, unpredictability, and “Epicurus’s atomic theory” are undermined by the fact that the platforms are all giant rooms equipped with sensors. It rotates around a pre-defined area in a pre-programmed manner. It’s just messy and unpredictable if you don’t really think about it.

And if the idea instead is to make you look at things from different perspectives, then I’d argue that doing so by having you sit on a giant rotating stand is too heavy-handed.

There’s a bunch of switches on the floor in the next room, with a human arm sticking out under the wall trying to grab them. At first it was just business: silly and funny. But then you start searching for the meaning that is supposed to be hidden in the ocean and it falls apart. Is it the idea that meaning is elusive, present but ultimately incomprehensible? So why does the hand eventually reach the keys, pick them up and then kick them out? All it’s saying is that meaning is out of reach because you’ve made it difficult for yourself.

Upstairs, a red canopy on motorized wheels dances around the gallery. The refrigerator next door has pictures frozen in ice that you’re supposed to take out and thaw so you can see them. It’s not worth it.

Lima is great at making you find significance in the unexpected without pushing you toward any actual substance. But this is a convenient way to do something meaningless while telling viewers they’re not looking hard enough.

If she said, “Hey, this is just silly and surreal and poetic,” it would be good. But the whole show is so full of immature philosophy and poor concepts that you can’t enjoy it for what it is. This is all supposed to be about process and discovery. I don’t have a problem with the look of any of them, but I don’t think they mean much, say anything – or look that good.

I sat there watching people on the halls of giant rooms drawing a naked man with an umbrella and I tried to think of Epicurus and atoms and chance. I peered into the rotating canopy and melted some ice cubes. I really tried to figure it out, find meaning and beauty. I thought serious thoughts, but all I could find was silly art.