Walking into Rivane Neuenschwander's Suspension Point, the South London Gallery's bright, spacious interior is obscured by gloom. Allowing your eyes to adjust to the murk, the reason becomes clear: a wooden mezzanine has been constructed at roughly the midway point of the gallery's height, covering the entire space, with the only illumination coming through a staircase that leads up to the temporary level.
Brazilian artist Neuenschwander's installation draws together a number of key works and motifs from her career. Patching them together into a single piece is a brave gamble, but one that doesn't entirely pay off. The lower half of the gallery comprises two visual works - one video, "Inventory of Small Deaths (Blow)", shows a bubble floating delicately over a series of terrains, and is the finest individual piece in the show; the other, 'Arabian Moons', consists of 1,001 holes punched through a roll of 16mm film, projecting a flickering lunar surface onto the wall. The hint of Sheherazade continues upstairs: a similar number of holes are drilled into a false wall that surrounds the gallery's temporary level, with the resultant dust piled into a 'mountain range' in the corner, near to a metal bucket into which water drips as the sound is magnified across the entire space. A conceptual representation of the lands traversed by the filmed bubble, perhaps, though it doesn't entirely convince. The platform does, however, offer a rare chance to inspect the skylight on the gallery's roof.
To the curator's blurb for a helping hand, then: Neuenschwander has created "a perpetual dialogue between additive and reductive processes is established, a dialogue which permeates the exhibition, each work within it and the relationships between them." Maybe, but in less bombastic eyes, it's a series of attractive gewgaws that promise more than they can deliver: a symphony without a conductor, and somewhat less than the sum of its more interesting parts.
Suspension Point, at South London Gallery, SE5 8UH (map). Nearest tube: Elephant & Castle, then bus. The show runs until 30th November, and is free.