{"id":59304,"date":"2025-12-16T15:03:02","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T15:03:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/?p=59304"},"modified":"2026-01-07T23:53:58","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T23:53:58","slug":"space-as-memory-the-flesh-of-space-exhibition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/space-as-memory-the-flesh-of-space-exhibition\/","title":{"rendered":"Space as memory: The Flesh of Space exhibition"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Play Ground II<\/em> (2025)
Photo by Ollie Hammick<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Despite differing artistic approaches, the project\u2019s participants \u2014 Marco Bizzarri, John Divola, Varvara Uhlik, and Zearo \u2014 are united by their attention to spaces devoid of people yet marked by traces of human presence. Through painting, photography, and installation, the artists examine architecture as a receptive structure in which light, shadow, proportions, and internal boundaries become tools of the viewer\u2019s experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Marco Bizzarri (2025)
Photo by Ollie Hammick<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Marco Bizzarri (2025)
Photo by Ollie Hammick<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Marco Bizzarri (2025)
Photo by Ollie Hammick<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Marco Bizzarri (2025)
Photo by Ollie Hammick<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Marco Bizzarri\u2019s images of abandoned interiors register the condition of materials: blurred outlines, time-altered walls, and surfaces that seem to have shifted into another mode of existence. The artist carefully observes how prolonged inactivity affects a place and how traces of past events accumulate within it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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John Divola (2019)
Photo by Ollie Hammick<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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John Divola (2019)
Photo by Ollie Hammick<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Within the exhibition, John Divola presents spaces where movement is absent but its consequences remain visible. Objects caught in a moment of temporal transition transform territory into a place that preserves action without its source.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Varvara Uhlik\u2019s installation, with lines that alter angles of perception, creates a sense of an inner impulse acting upon space. Zearo\u2019s works focus on the relationship between the body and its absence, when space becomes a point of anticipation \u2014 a dense atmosphere of very recent presence.<\/p>\n\n\n

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John Divola (1977)
Photo by Ollie Hammick<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The exhibition is designed to emphasize the role of light. In the galleries, it highlights not only the artworks but also architectural boundaries. Shadows become an additional layer of perception. \u201cIn The flesh of space<\/em>, walls and interior elements cease to be static objects. They become witnesses \u2014 membranes that absorb gestures, atmosphere, and psychological residue. Emptiness itself carries phenomenological weight here,\u201d noted Lisa Modiano, associate director of The Sunday Painter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Marco Bizzarri (2025)
Photo by Ollie Hammick<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Marco Bizzarri (2025)
Photo by Ollie Hammick<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The exhibition unfolds across two levels. The Upper Gallery becomes a space for painting and photography, where the works form an almost cinematic sequence of gestures and traces, while the Lower Gallery opens as a \u201cmaterial\u201d stage, featuring large-scale objects and emotionally charged images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Every Shadow\u2019s Diary<\/em> (2025)
Photo by Ollie Hammick<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Song to Another Summer<\/em> (2024)
Photo by Ollie Hammick<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the Upper Gallery, Marco Bizzarri\u2019s canvases Rayo<\/em> (2025) and Polvo y estrellas<\/em> (2025), along with photographs by John Divola, create a sense of immersion in spatial ruptures and fragile states suspended between presence and disappearance. They are followed by three works by Divola from the GAFB, Daybreak<\/em> series. Installed sequentially, they establish a rhythm of light and quiet traces of movement that no longer belong to a body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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John Divola (2019)
Photo by Ollie Hammick<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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John Divola (2019)
Photo by Ollie Hammick<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Two works by Zearo \u2014 Every Shadow\u2019s Diary<\/em> (2025) and Song to Another Summer<\/em> (2024) \u2014 introduce a sense of \u201cbreathing\u201d and a subtle corporeality of surfaces into the space.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Varvara Uhlik: Play Ground II<\/em> (2025)
Photo by Ollie Hammick<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In the Lower Gallery, the atmosphere becomes more weighty. Here are works by John Divola with a different tonality and sensibility, as well as a spatial installation by Varvara Uhlik. Divola\u2019s photograph Zuma #75<\/em> (1977) draws the viewer into a realm of ruined yet living architecture, where each glint of light captures a moment of gradual decay. Nearby is 3_2019_4 (GAFB, Daybreak)<\/em> (2019) \u2014 a more intimate yet equally tense image of a space that has experienced an indeterminate movement.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Photo by Ollie Hammick<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

At the center of the lower level is Varvara Uhlik\u2019s installation Play Ground II<\/em> (2025), consisting of two steel sculptures. Portions of a balance beam and swings emerging above a dark, glossy surface create the sensation of a suspended gesture with palpable inner tension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project raises the question of how a place is able to retain lived experience. The idea echoes Gaston Bachelard\u2019s thought in The Poetics of Space<\/em> that a lived territory extends beyond geometry and preserves an inner life. \u201cThe flesh of space<\/em> does not ask whether places remember, but what exactly they remember. And whether, by listening more closely to these traces, we can come closer to understanding what it means to inhabit the world at all,\u201d explains Lisa Modiano.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Marco Bizzarri (2025)
Photo by Ollie Hammick<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Varvara Uhlik: Play Ground II<\/em> (2025)
Photo by Ollie Hammick<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In London, where the urban landscape is continuously renewed \u2014 neighborhoods disappear and new structures emerge \u2014 the question of memory resonates with particular urgency. Many buildings continue to exist only in residents\u2019 recollections. Against this backdrop, The flesh of space<\/em> becomes an exploration of what anchors a place in memory and why the sensation of space can outlast its physical form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gallery is open from Wednesday to Saturday, 12:00 to 6:00 pm, until December 20.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"