FOURTEEN MAGNOLIA DOUBLE LAMPS: SOUTH LONDON GALLERY (From The Oxford Times)

FOURTEEN MAGNOLIA DOUBLE LAMPS: SOUTH LONDON GALLERY

10:11am Thursday 12th October 2006 in

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Fourteen Magnolia Double Lamps stand proudly in two rows of seven, parading the main exhibition space of the South London Gallery. Each weighing 1 tonnes, they reach up in unison to clear the Victorian glass lantern ceiling by less than a metre. Chris Burden's immaculately restored 1920s cast-iron lamp posts were shipped into the gallery (at 65 Peckham Road, London SE5 8UH) from Los Angeles. In his installation Burden merges two phases of Victorian design - the gallery and the posts themselves- to create a wonderful sense of architectural disquiet.

Walking around the lamp posts that appear almost as decorative pillars, visitors to Burden's installation are faced with a space seemingly in wait. The physical weight of the lamp posts, their perfect alignment and their uniform colour of battleship grey allow them to fit, aesthetically, within the Victorian building that has itself undergone a process of neutralisation through modernisation. The viewer is left to wander around what seem like ornate totems to industrialism. And just as elaborate, often secret, rituals form an important part of totemistic behaviour, there is a definite sense of movement and circulation begged of the viewer on this stage.

The design simplicity belies the significant technical feat of the piece, whose component parts, after meticulous restoration, made their heavy-duty journey from Burden's studio to a secured grounding inside the main space of the South London Gallery.

Chris Burden's re-fit in bringing Victorian lamps into a Victorian property, via a transatlantic journey, brings to light an historical irony. Burden's lamp posts are rescued relics from a massive series that once glowed over Los Angeles's megalopolis, as pawns in a civic ego. The majority were removed and destroyed in the 1960s and 1970s, the relics having become background noise on a broad-cultured stage. The original designs for these lamp posts was European, contributing to the pomp and pride harboured by L.A's early century acquisitions. To return these posts to their design roots neatly though unsettlingly rejoins the Victorian municipal aim with its anti-matter.

14 Magnolia Double Lamps can be seen until November 5. For informatiojn visit www.southlondongallery.org