The party is over, and Evan Ifekoya’s work is a slow, creeping fug of a comedown. Images of water cover the floor, cresting up the curved walls like waves frozen at the moment of crashing down on you. Silver, orange and black helium balloons dot the ceiling, slowly dropping to the floor as the party fades.
You kick off your shoes and sit on a pile of soundproofing foam in the centre of the space surrounded by speakers. Echoey house music dribbles through the air, like hearing a rave from around the corner, as voices talk about theory, working, south London. In the corner, an image of a black female bodybuilder’s back flexes over the space.
You get the sense that this is a hugely personal work of Ifekoya. That black bodybuilder is a symbol of contrasting ideas of gender, queerness, identity, as is the rest of the show. Those reverberating voice feel like a diary of trysts, ideas, debates.
But those all feel like faraway, unapproachable things here – they’re effusive and personal. Instead, the whole show feels like a winding down, a Saturday night limping into a Sunday morning. It feels like London last weekend, next weekend. It’s a private moment of living. The only problem is that the show just leaves you wanting something bigger than it gives, somehow. This is meant to be art about gender, identity and politics but it only just comes across.You want it take you in deeper, hit you harder, overwhelm you a bit. You just want more. That’s a good thing to want.
@eddyfrankel
