When you walk into Ernesto Neto's exhibition at the Hayward Gallery on London's Southbank centre, you can't help but think you've walked into a room full of coloured tights. His tent like structures seem to be made out of lots of lovely shades of nylon hosiery, with a few American Tan holes linking one set of spaces to another.
This might sound flippant, but the effect is wonderful. I like art that you can walk into and this exhibition encourages you to take your shoes off and walk into the sculptures, which are a soft meshy haze of colours. There's sunshine yellow and orange through to lavender blues and sea greens. The mesh is held together by a bony skeleton of wooden struts and there are smells too, either from the herby flakes of leaves sewn into the gauzy walls (a scratch 'n sniff interior) or suspended nets of spices, which hover around nose-height.
A definite for anyone involved in space, interiors or colour and babies seem to love it too. I followed a group of mums with tiny babes in arms who were all totally transfixed by the changing light.
Ernesto Neto, The Edges Of The World
Hayward Gallery, Southbank London
Until the 5th September 2010
