14 Feb 2026 · South Bank Centre · Free · Ages all-ages
Animating the brutalist concrete architecture of the Hayward Gallery, Klaus Weber’s outdoor installation, which features two water-spouting figures and a narrow waterfall, creates a sense of passage for visitors. The work also embodies Weber’s hopes for what an art gallery can offer: the chance to ‘widen our viewpoint, sharpen our senses and make new connections in our brains’. Peacock, one of the two bronze sculptures, is a hybrid human whose hips emit an exuberant jet of water, suggesting a magnificent white bird fanning its plumage. At intervals, the cascade of water deluges the sculpture, extinguishing its plumes and marking a tension between what the artist calls ‘gravity and levity’. Thinking Fountain, the second bronze figure, assumes a pose of contemplation. A fountain of water surges upwards from its neck to suggest the shape of a head, before falling down its bronze body. Flowing water is an ancient metaphor for human consciousness, still evident in contemporary language when we speak of streams of consciousness or floods of emotion.