Part 1
Further Reading:
Seth Price: Dispersion
Further research:
Richard Serra: Tilted Arc
Joseph Beuys: Sozalie Plastik
Manchester Piccadilly Gardens Berlin Wall - actually Tadao Ando (2002)
Go see:
Christo Early Works, Gagosian
https://gagosian.com/exhibitions/2023/christo-early-works-curated-by-elena-geuna/
Growing popularity of inflatables …
Soloveiko Songbirds [Nightingale] Svitlana Reinish - UAL Wimbledon
Rosie McGinn - UAL Wimbledon alumni
Doug Fishbone - GCCA/Chelsea MA & foundation dip
Relation to performing arts? entertainment?
Soloveiko Songbirds [Nightingales] Eurofest Liverpool
Svitlana Reinish/Amgio & Amigo / M3 Industries
(I worked on this. I have first hand experience of ‘inflatables’. The improbability of working with non-spheres is somewhat undermined in my view once you realise you have to hand-ball 4 tonnes of concrete blocks into each bird to avoid tethers. My instant reaction would be to show the blocks. This is what Aleksandra Mir touches on in Sculpture Unlimited ‘who cares about sculpture? i just want to make impossible things!’ when she decides that it’s impossible NOT to make a feature of the installation/dismantling. However she backs away from that by still doing the plane and she cheekily lays claim to the all the technicians as part of the art, people who i suspect would not prefer to be thought of as performer-participants but full collaborators. Like, she doesn’t extend their collaboration to the drawing or the workshop, for example. Structural engineering drawings aren’t shown. She only ‘shows’ what she cannot avoid showing. IMO there’s also an unfortunate ‘bow’ to the front of the plane but maybe that’s ok but it gives away the materiality. McGinn and Reinish use air - so its ‘live.’
However, the framework of 30 years cultural exchange with Ukraine was very joyful. SRs work was about showcasing Ukraine but its relevant here for this discussion of monumentality - and also blurring with ‘entertainment’ (or ‘life’))
Alexandra Mir - Plane Landing
Rosie McGinn - Howse - HYPER-deflation, Paradise Works, Salford
Division of Labour (Nat Pitt) with Dean Kenning (from the Fruitmarket. Class?)
David Ogle - LOOMIN
Southbank 2020-23
(I worked on this too. Another approach to temporary monumentality with links to drawing. The work is suspended improbably using a ‘finger trap’ tension system and taken down and put up each year. Although it also can fall into a ‘entertainment’ trap on a bad day(?) or me it is the most successful. The improbability of it’s longevity is also impressive; it isn’t powder coated and the protective boxes are made of plywood.)
ps. why not be entertaining
Richard Serra Tilted Arc 1981
Tadao Ando 2002 Pavilion for the Commonwealth Games
Referred to locally as the ‘Berlin Wall’ dismantling began in 2021