Synclastic/Anticlastic, 2010

Hector Zamora

I guess with any event such as a Biennial, there are going to be hits and misses. I met Hector Zamora at a dinner a few months back where Lorenzo Fusi (who has curated the public art for this year's event) was explaining his vision for this year's Biennial and Hector Zamora was to be a part of that.

Maybe I was expecting too much. Hector Zamora made an amazing piece for the last Venice Biennial - it involved wedging a model of a Zeppelin in one of Venice's narrow streets and then inventing an invasion of an army of the things with the suggestion that this particular one had got lost. There were videos, posters, postcards, paintings and fake news stories spreading propaganda about an event that never happened. It was a brilliant and inspired idea. There's a better explanation than I can give - here - its well worth the read.

So, while not exactly a miss, this installation doesn't come close to the Venice work. Its made of 200 molded concrete shapes and its in the atrium of a building that hasn't been finished yet. I liked the play of the material used in a still live construction site. I stayed for a while trying to see if I could get anything more out of it. I thought of space ships and flying things. I wasn't too far wrong - he thought of stingrays and odd shaped buildings.

But that's about it. It plays with your mind for a while, which was cool, but ultimately it didn't draw me in and I couldn't help feeling disappointed that this wasn't something more spectacular.