Strong & Unstable

I’m spending June in Venice on a Fellowship with the British Council. I spend half the time looking after the British Pavilion as part of the Biennale and the other half doing my own research.

The artist showing this year at the British Pavilion is Phyllida Barlow. When I started, I wasn’t especially fond of her works so it’s been an interesting experience spending so much time in their company. More and more, I feel like they want to get up and start jumping and dancing around the space. So I made these gifs.

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Wobbly Barlow no. 1

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Her sculptural language works as a surprisingly potent metaphor for these uncertain, unreal times. See more gifs:
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Saltaire Mantel

“The hearth and the fireplace are as close as the contemporary secular Western dwelling comes to a shrine… the site of celebration and ritual” – Edwin Heathcote, The Meaning of Home

I enjoyed my weekend showing at Helena’s and Neil’s terraced house in the model town of Saltaire, Yorkshire as part of the Open Houses Arts Trail. Neil’s family was in the Merchant Navy and many of these trinkets are geniunely old. I thought they complemented the set-up quite nicely.

🏢 THE SKYSCRAPER INDEX 💾

• Architecture and irrationality: a new series
• Upcoming shows: come and visit

I’ve started a series of perforated metal sculptures called The Skyscraper Index.

 

Met Life Tower: Panic of 1907 | Zinc-coated steel, edition of 10. 16x60x4cm
The Shard: Global Financial Crisis | Zinc-coated steel, edition of 100. 22x30x4cm

These wall-hung panels are based on buildings that were once the tallest of their time. The series is based on a flippant idea formulated by economist Andrew Lawrence: “An era’s tallest building rises on the eve of economic downturn”.  Continue reading “🏢 THE SKYSCRAPER INDEX 💾” →

Lubomirov Angus-Hughes is showing lots of small works all under £180. A real delight and plenty of bargains – prints, paintings, jewellery, art objects – go for unusual Xmas gifts or just a riot of images. Highly recommended – and not just cos I’m in it. 9-18 Dec.

An Elegy to Lordship Road

It’s already Autumn. I spent my much of the summer getting somewhat fixated on a strange little house between the reservoirs in Stoke Newington.

Next to the water and a little way from other houses, it has this almost mythic quality, of being out-of-place, of living a life apart from the rest of the city.

lordship-aerial

This ordinary-looking house was originally built to service the reservoirs, and was once known as The Waterman’s House. It was later extended (unsympathetically, according to Hackney’s Local List), following the 1980s preference for DIY Victoriana.
The neighbouring Woodberry Down Estate was a post-war utopia of social housing, schools and public facilities (my mum used to work at the health centre). By the 1990s it had become a wilderness of used needles and rats. The good intentions of the 2006 masterplan – which I know intimately – have since been maligned – part of London’s turbid housing crisis. A 3 bed flat is on sale for £945K.

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