Saturday 2 November 2013

Daniel Silver’s Dig


Katee Woods examines a derelict site near Tottenham Court Road and comes to some surprisingly Freudian conclusions about the lost civilisation she finds there.


Emerging from the derelict remains of the old Odeon site, Artangel’s latest commission Dig is presented as an archaeological excavation, unearthing hundreds of culturally diverse statues of human-like form. The arrangement of limbs and partial body parts is both museum-like and reminiscent of a butcher’s shop, yet without the context of the larger sculpture (that is to assume these are parts of a whole), these cuts of meat often remain unidentifiable. This sense of mystery and the unknown pervades throughout the exhibition.