Counterwork

10.10.11

Nest Day 4

09.10.11

Nest Day 3

08.10.11

Nest Day 2

07.10.11

Nest and Not At This Address On Now

Nest and Not At This Address are both on show now.
Home, the exhibition that Not At This Address is in, opened last night. I finished the work just in time after four days of manic building. Documentation to follow.
Nest is a live build happening from now until Friday 14 October. Please come along, bring an object to be added to the Nest, and help build the sculpture.

28.09.11

The New Economy of Art

What are we worth? Artists and the Economic Crisis
Going to this event run by Artquest, CAS and DACS. Looks interesting.
Speakers include: John Kieffer, Zineb Sedira and Bob and Roberta Smith.

25.09.11

Nest Starting Soon

Following hot on the heels of my work for Home is Nest, a participatory installation in Testbed 1 in Battersea. Check out the project page for more info.

24.09.11

Place, Space & Identity 3 Comes to a Close

PSI3 officially ended on Wednesday with an excellent event at the Gladstone Pottery Museum in Stoke-on-Trent.
There was an overview of all the projects, people had the chance to meet with the artists and there were some thought-provoking speeches by Ros Robins, director of Arts Council West Midlands, and journalist and lecturer Oliver Bennett. Bennett’s talk in particular I found very interesting - he spoke about the role of art and artists in regeneration and the palpable ‘end’ of big, iconic arts regeneration projects. He charted the rise of such projects (Guggenheim in Bilbao, Angel of the North) and the problems of trying to replicate these successes, which is very difficult. It’s not as simple as just building a big arts centre by a renowned architect or installing a massive sculpture. There is a quality involved that you can’t really manufacture or predict - you can do your damnedest to try and engineer such a thing but you cannot guarantee that what results will work itself into the hearts of those that live with it, or that an art gallery will spark the sustained revival of a town or city’s flagging economy.
There is also another debate (in my mind) about whether economic revival should be the goal art in regeneration - please refer to my earlier post with video of Mr Stewart Lee. 

26.08.11

Installation Time

Installation for Platform 4 begins on Tuesday 30th August and will take about four days. Look out for A & A Scaffolders, North West Synthetic Surfaces and me.