A decaying body made of bread lies crumbling at the opening while bells chime discordantly. On the walls hang psychedelic landscapes from which skeletons and skulls and falling girls emerge from the cosmologies; behind them, the walls of the Serpentine have cracked, exposing brickwork, wiring and more strange bread artifacts. What’s going on? It’s like walking into a cult ceremony in a squat where all the residents, through some stupendous ritual, have beamed up to Venus.
Multi-disciplinary artist Justin Caguiat – an American with Filipino heritage, though born in Japan - is interested in transformation wrought through destruction and rebirth. He chooses art over mind control or drugs to affect those who enter his spaces and this Serpentine South takeover turns the gallery itself into art, in a disorientating experience which rewards time and patience (much like quaaludes, actually).
