This is the final show at The Wapping Project – a former hydraulic power station – and its closure will be mourned by anyone who has ever been hungry, thirsty or culturally in need in E1. Under the direction of Jules Wright, intelligent use has been made of this impressive industrial space over the past 13 years. Richard Wilson’s ‘Butterfly’ (2003) gradually unfolded into a light aircraft, while Guy Bourdin’s sleek photographs (shown in 2009) of long-legged women formed a pleasing contrast to the rough, unfinished surroundings. It’s sad, then, to have to relate that ‘The Lady from the Sea’, a collaboration between Wright and photographer Thomas Zanon-Larcher, is something of a chilly let-down.
The story is loosely based on Henrik Ibsen’s 1888 play of the same name, in which dry land and sea, responsibility (a doctor husband) and freedom (a sailor former lover) compete for the affections of a young woman. To set the scene, there are a couple of evocative projections of Arctic landscapes and a cluster of TV screens showing watery vistas from that particular edge of the world. You then enter a burlap-coated, fake permafrost-carpeted wooden shack to watch a wall-size film projection.
Instead of Ibsen-style psychodrama, though, you’re greeted by 15 minutes of fashion plate stills in which the woman looks moody, the husband glum and the bit of rough handsomely rough. It feels oddly one-dimensional. Still, Zanon-Larcher takes a beautiful photograph and Wright assures us that the Wapping Project’s ‘vision will live on’.
Nina Caplan