The Human Factor at the Hayward Gallery

 The Human Factor at the Hayward Gallery explores the role of the figure in contemporary sculpture. It displayed a wide variety of materials from Pawel Athamer's 'Animal intestines, straw and hair over metal, plaster, porcelain, artificial wig, wooden floor, video camera, mobile phone, wristwatch, cotton thread and other materials' to a head made of a live bee colony (Pierre Huyghe). 

The following are highlights from my sketchbook.

Below left is Blühendes Leben (2009) by Georg Herold. In general there were too many mannequins in the exhibition, which I feel is cheating really - below right is Resistance-Subjecter, 2011 by Thomas Hirschhorn, from a set of mannequins cut into and displaying crystals growing within. 

Cathy Wilkes's 'No Title' 2011 was an uncanny and disturbing piece (below) expressing desolation and grief.

Ugo Roudinone cast the figures of young dancers in wax, catching details of the skin and veins, they sit in a large room on the floor. They exist in a void.

By far my favourite works were by Paloma Varga Weisz, who cast a figure and then carved it into limewood,  before charring them with a blow torch to mimic the colour of the model's skin. The figure was divided when cast and she choose to keep the pieces apart 'as if hacked or butchered by a machete'. Alas no good sketches of this one!