We had the great pleasure of going to the Barbican last night to see a Ron Arad take on his fans. His Restless retrospective exhibition spilled over into the world of sport as many amateurs and at least one professional ping pong player gathered to play on some pretty out there tables - one bowed mirrored one, another with a bookshelf marking the net line... and as for the bats - solid steel ones that weighed a ton in the shape of Hawaii and Alaska, ones made out of volumes of Kafka, and lovely ones with LED lights inset that spelled PING PONG when you waved them in a vaguely menacing fashion at your opponent. All played with lovely BLACK ping pong balls - classy. The bats were made by Troika, and it was one of their friends who told us about this quite bizarre but actually incredibly friendly and hight spirited night - you could have heard a pin drop during the final between Ron and Xu - the pro player who worked here way to the final. Ron won in the end, I don't think he could believe it himself. Game set and match, the Barbican.
This bat was super heavy. Shaped like either Hawaii or Alaska - one day we'll find out which...
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