There are art exhibitions that dazzle the eyes, others that challenge the intellect. Then there are those rare experiences that reach far deeper—into the soul, the spirit, the unspoken parts of ourselves. When Forms Come Alive, currently on display at the Hayward Gallery in London, is that kind of exhibit. A show that doesn’t just display art, but seemingly breathes it, pulsing with emotion, energy, and the kind of magic that lingers in your bones long after you’ve left the gallery.
Curated around the theme of bodily energy and sculptural transformation, When Forms Come Alive brings together a breathtaking selection of international contemporary artists whose works push the boundaries of what sculpture can be. The exhibition explores the idea of animation—not in the literal, Disney sense, but in how inert materials can be charged with motion, fluidity, and soul.
It’s not every day that you walk into a gallery and feel like the art is walking toward you.
A Symphony of Movement in Stillness
From the moment you enter the space, you’re greeted by a visual chorus of forms that twist, slither, hang, ripple, and dance. Whether through textiles, metal, clay, latex, or wire, the artists in this show prove that solid materials can exude as much energy as any living being.
A standout is Franz West’s sinuous, pink, plaster forms that seem to loll and lean like oversized tongues, drooping with unspoken thoughts. Then there’s Ruth Asawa’s iconic hanging wire sculptures—woven with spiderweb intricacy—that cast moving shadows, turning the space itself into a canvas.
But perhaps no work speaks louder than the silent force of Simone Leigh’s contributions. Her ceramic pieces are simultaneously monumental and intimate. The way her forms swell and stretch conjures the labor of breath, of growth, of Black womanhood as an expansive, enduring force.
It was impossible not to pause and reflect in front of each piece. These aren’t sculptures you look at—they’re sculptures you feel. The curators achieved something remarkable by making the viewer a participant in the kinetic field of the works. Even standing still, the art moves you.
Beyond the Visual: A Physical Experience
What sets When Forms Come Alive apart is its invitation to the body. You don’t just use your eyes—you use your muscles, your posture, your breath. You feel tension in the curved steel. You feel softness in the looped fabrics. You imagine what it might be like to be these shapes—to twist, to sprawl, to dangle from invisible threads.
Many of the works intentionally break the fourth wall between viewer and object. Do Ho Suh’s fabric-based structures, for example, are so ephemeral and dreamlike, you’re tempted to step inside them. And some of Ernesto Neto’s pieces feel like they’re reaching out, arms open, ready to be embraced.
The result? A multisensory exhibition that’s impossible to forget. I’ve been to countless shows over the years, but this one lingered in a very different way. It got under the skin—in the best possible sense.
Themes of Life, Resistance, and Transformation
What makes this show especially potent is how it frames “form” not as a static end product, but as a process. There’s a quiet narrative running through the exhibit about life’s inherent struggle to change and evolve. The forms don’t just lookalive—they speak to what it means to be alive. To stretch. To bend. To resist. To transform.
Take Paloma Varga Weisz’s surreal, slightly grotesque hybrids of the human and animal. They speak to bodily anxiety and metamorphosis. Or Alina Szapocznikow’s haunting lamps, made from casts of her own body. There is beauty in their melancholy—a kind of ghostly trace of what it means to inhabit a body that carries both desire and decay.
These aren’t just pretty objects. They’re stories. Testimonies. Confessions.
The Afterglow
It’s been days since I left the Hayward, but When Forms Come Alive has refused to leave me. I’ve found myself staring at the lines of trees, the curves of buildings, the stretch of fabric in a sleeve—seeing movement, presence, magic everywhere.
That’s the power of great art. It transforms how you see the world—not just within the gallery, but long after. It awakens something in you that had been sleeping.
I think that’s why I keep returning to that phrase: art magic. There’s no better way to describe it. This exhibition doesn’t need elaborate theoretical justification or highbrow jargon. It works because it feels like magic. It reminds us that even in a world often defined by stillness, detachment, or screens, we are made of motion, breath, sensation. We are, in our own ways, sculptures too—ever forming, ever shifting.
Terkuma Anagh