Reflective Doctor Who Tardis on show at Hayward Gallery

Blurring edges: Artist Mark Wallinger with his spectacular reflective Tardis which gives the illusion that it is dematerialising at the Hayward Gallery on the South Bank
Louise Jury13 April 2012

It is a shiny new Tardis fit for a Time Lord. But this is not a time machine for Doctor Who but an artwork that looks as if it is disappearing in the middle of a new exhibition.

Time and Relative Dimensions in Space, 2001, is by Mark Wallinger, the Turner Prize-winning artist who is curating the show at the Hayward Gallery.

Called The Russian Linesman, the exhibition is inspired by the official whose ruling in the 1966 World Cup Final changed football history.

Linesman Tofiq Bakhramov confirmed that Geoff Hurst's shot had crossed the line when the Germans disputed the referee's decision.

His crucial decision is a metaphorical rather than literal inspiration for Wallinger's investigation of boundaries, illusions and arbitrary divides.

Wallinger said: "I have always been interested in how we define and are defined by thresholds and boundaries, the events of history. The works in the exhibition use illusion, artifice and dislocating devices to look at our accidental time and place in the world afresh."

Other pieces blurring the boundary between fact and fiction include 18th-century trompe l'oeil paintings.

Ralph Rugoff, director of the South Bank gallery, said the show involved an intriguing mix of objects from the fields of science, politics and anthropology as well as art. It would "amuse, puzzle and engross visitors", he said.

Wallinger has just been chosen for Britain's largest public art commission. He is to create a 50-metre high white horse in the Ebbsfleet Valley in Kent.

Mark Wallinger Curates: The Russian Linesman, Frontiers, Borders and Thresholds , opens next Wednesday, 18 February, and runs until 4 May, with admission charge.

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