? ? Summer shows ? ?
Our annual Open Studios this year is on Saturday 20 May – it would be great to see you there.
Bow Arts Rum Factory
Pennington Street, Wapping E1W 2BD – Map
12pm – 6pm
Continue reading “? ? Summer shows ? ?”
Tumblr scrapbook #2
Often when I’m researching a new topic I make a tumblr scrapbook for images, bits of text, video, and other relevant ideas. Here’s the scrapbook for The Skyscraper Index, it’s quite good fun, if you’re into that sort of thing.
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.
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”
Will Self on skyscrapers
“A skyscraper is always a big swaying dick vaunting the ambitions of late capitalism to reduce the human individual to the status and the proportions of a submissive worker ant”
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.
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.
Our First Open Studios
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Open Studios at Bow Arts Rum Factory in Wapping, tomorrow 2-8pm.
If you’re in London tomorrow, it would be great to see you at our Open Studios event. Once News International’s offices, the Rum Factory (where I’m based) is since last year home to 100 artists.