The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts is a great collection of sculptures and visual art with many idols and objects from places such as South America & Africa with labels stating “acquired 1985.” Whether that means given to the collector freely, for a price or that they were taken without permission I don't know. Perhaps I'd have had more context if I'd gone into the bits of the building you have to pay for but I am much too tight for that. There's some modern art too but not anything too expensive because this is Norwich after all. The centre is set within the concrete ugliness of the University of East Anglia, a prime example of Brutalism at its most horrific.
The toilets at the Sainsbury Centre consist of a series of mini-suites rather than cubicles, each containing a toilet and a bloody huge mirror. I mean a mirror taking up the entire back wall of the suite. I took this to be a clever indictment of the solipsism of modern art – a clever mocking of that self reflexive, narcissistic urge which takes dominance over any social alchemy that might be gained from an art based around concepts of community & social responsibility. It is the "me me me" of celebrity culture and youtube. By reflecting back the face of the person who has just been wandering through the exhibition that person is reminded of their own voyeurism, in fact being confronted with the uncomfortable truth of their western privilege, only minutes ago unconsciously projected onto the majority world exhibits. But furthermore in the size of the mirror we see the deception of narcissism, that our own self-image expands to fill our entire perception of the world but that this is warped and yet unavoidable. Can we ever escape viewing art as a product of the society we were brought up in and the cultural attachments we bring to it?
As I was struck with these thoughts I realised I could not find the hand dryer. Eventually I found it hidden under the mirror. Before I was just mildly interested about the concepts behind this installation - excited enough to play with my chin but not my testes - but now I realised its deeper meanings – the hand dryer represents a spiritual cleansing. The water from the taps represents the river of life and the control of the current as we helplessly swim in the directions mandated by its influence. There is a mercurial force but it is not ours to control. However by drying our hands we overcome the water and become able to ascend above the control of the current and forge our own destiny. I believe the search for the hand drier represents a quest for gnosis. And where do we find this gnosis, this ascent to the final Sefirot of the Kabbalah to our highest, truest self? Why, hidden beneath the mirror, behind the wall of our narcissism!
So to summarise – in the Sainsbury Centre we are forced to confront our own narcissism and voyeuristic tendencies but then once we recognise them, we can accept them, and search for the deeper truth and our ultimate destiny as enlightened beings beneath the veil of our solipsism.
Breathtaking stuff - and this was just the toilets. I would recommend the Sainsburys centre for Visual Arts to anyone who can see.
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