SPITALFIELDS PUBLIC ART
Spitalfields Public Art programme provides an exciting array of sculptures and soundscapes in and around Spitalfields market.
Spitalfields Spirit, Paul Cox, 2009
“I’m late, I’m late, I’m very, very late!!”
You may be mistaken that you are in Alice in Wonderland, but in fact you are in Spitalfields Market.
Paul Cox’s quirky sculpture located in Bishop’s Square, has been made with the area’s rich history in mind, from the very earliest days of Spitalfields, when it was once a grazing area for cattle, next to the priory.
Six oversized white rabbits frolic on the grass, while picnickers and passers by look on. It begs the question…why?
Rabbits live in large, tight knit communities, not unlike the diverse communities of people that live in the East End today. While workers, passers-by and visitors mingle with the rabbits, it mirrors the migrant spirit of the past.
The colony of clinical white rabbits, with golden eyes, is an echo of the spirit of Mary Spital, who in the year 1200, opened a hospital which was part of an Augustinian priory. Her spirit, brought to life, is set free in what is now a bustling urban environment.
In these uncertain times we all need an escape, a lift….this installation will certainly make you smile.
Paul Cox is an award winning sculptor specialising in mixed media construction. He was awarded the Henry Moore scholarship to study postgraduate sculpture at the Royal Academy Schools, London. His work is represented internationally in public and private collections. Paul now lives and works on the south coast where he works on gallery exhibition work and one-off commissions.
Sheila Vollmer
‘Cocoon Line’, 2008-9, galvanized & painted steel
‘Tower Line’, 2009, galvanized & painted steel
Through their woven like forms, the placing of ‘Cocoon Line’ and ‘Tower Line’ at Bishop’s Square recalls the Huguenot silk works of Spitalfields.
Starting from a square slinky format the undulating forms of both sculptures are dependent on set systems of joined angles and lengths of the angle. The one flat side of both works and the painted colours, add to the changing views and energy, accentuating the continuous line and drawing the eye inside. The form of the works and the nature of the materials are interdependent.
Canadian born and with a BA in Visual Art from the University of Guelph, Ontario in 1985, Sheila has lived in London since 1987 after a post graduate course in Sculpture at St Martin's School of Art.
www.sheilavollmer.com
System No.18, Julian Wild
System no.18 was made in 2006 and is part of a series of works called Systems.
System no. 18 is a sphere made using scaffolding tubing and clamps. This work was made in response to the building boom that was going on in the UK at the time that it was made. Julian was interested in working with a construction system that was synonymous with regeneration and change. Scaffolding is often used on a temporary basis to aid in the building and renovation of houses. It is a much maligned and overlooked material. With this work Julian wants to encourage people to look again at this everyday construction system and to see the beauty in it.
Julian says: “The siteing of System no. 18 in Spitalfields is to me an ideal location for it. The area has undergone massive regeneration. This work is a remnant of the activity of the building boom that changed the face of this area.”
Spitalfields has an on-going commitment to supporting and showcasing the arts, through which it aims to celebrate the rich local history and ever-changing nature of the area.
The visual art exhibitions have been curated by Dickson Russell Art Management and Free Form Arts Trust, as part of developer Hammerson's larger rolling programme of public art installations, events and exhibitions for the site.
www.julianwild.com
julianwild.blogspot.com
Red Church, Eleonora Aguiari
Eleonora’s work addresses the concepts of ‘church’ and ‘temple’. On first visiting Spitalfields, she was struck by the dramatic façade of Hawksmoor’s church: its strong presence, its distance, silence and purity.
Her own ‘church’ plays with the Hawksmoor original and, in using the colour red, she has created a contrast with its white façade, and a dialogue between the ideas of purity and passion.
Lines of Communication, Craft + Pegg
The Civil War fortifications of London are a forgotten feature of the city's urban fabric. At the time they were one of the most extensive feats of civil engineering ever attempted in the British Isles.
The eleven mile circuit of the city is recorded as a sketch in Vertue's map of 1738, a sketch of sufficient accuracy that it may be transposed onto the contemporary London map and its principle features located.
Whilst a London-wide feature, the "Lines of Communication" as they were known possessed a number of significant features in and around Spitalfields including: Star Forts, Hornworks, palisaded ditches and moats.
The construction of the Lines of Communication was a huge community endeavour, with reports of up to 100,000 citizens of all classes labouring voluntarily - and in good humour - to build the lines for their mutual protection.
Craft + Pegg use model making as a tool to understanding 'place'. To create the model the team had to critically analyse both the historic map and London's existing plan, and decisions and interpretations of scale and form had to be made in the production of new plans, the wooden positive, the rubber moulds and the finishing of the concrete model itself. The process of 'making' provides challenges which force an intimacy and familiarity that studying a plan can never bring.
The production of the model has been undertaken with a lot of hard work and advice from the following: Aito Albo, Julia Putsep, Ashley Bonham, Danny Cuervals and Mark Sowden.
In addition the work has been undertaken with the resources and infinite patience of the school of Architecture and Visual Arts at the University of East London.
www.craftpegg.com
A Pear and a Fig, Ali Grant
Ali’s bronze is not just a simple reminder of the days of the market: A Pear and a Fig is a still life, the fruits of which are shown ripe and ready to eat. The fabric and the block create the composition; these fruits are not casual windfalls. Artists have depicted still-lifes since the time of the Romans, as a celebration and a reminder of the opulence that came with commerce.
Spitalfields Journey, David Rhys Jones
This installation is directly inspired by a journey David made through Spitalfields, an area of London that has always been on the 'edge', geographically and socially. It has a rich, sometimes dark history, and still retains an 'aura'.
The sculpture is constructed of steel with applied imagery, and is arranged as a two-part work that can be walked between and around, allowing the viewer to make their own journey. Walking between the two parts, one face has a mirrored surface to enable the viewer to be reflected and thus become part of the street scene.
The images contained within the work have all been photographed locally but in selecting unusual angles and scale, and by juxtaposing unexpected details, the viewer is drawn into an enigmatic world.
www.davidrhysjones.com
Diaspora/Coalescence, Simon Nelson
Diaspora/Coalescence references the ornamental traces left by successive waves of immigrants in East London. Huguenots, Jews, Muslims and others have occupied the same spaces and transformed them to suit their own purposes and beliefs.
The aesthetic systems that encoded these world views from the effusive French rococo to abstract Islamic calligraphic geometries provide the aesthetic system for this work. The sinuous organic lines of Diaspora/Coalescence shift this notion of 'multi-aesthetic occupancy' to an examination of the problematic relationship between ornament and architecture after Modernism.
This sculptural intervention into Foster and Partners' development on Market Street sets up an opposition of formal elements. The elements which Simeon introduces to the columns and soffits of the street are extravagantly ornamental. They refer to a vestigial function of such ornaments - that of the corbel - the carved piece of stone that supported lintels or arches in the compressive structural logic of stone buildings.
www.simeonnelson.com
Shadow Rounds, Kerry Andrews
Located in front of the Charnel House, Shadow Rounds is an electronic sound work exploring the voice of Spitalfields, a ‘portrait’ based on language transformations over the past 2,000 years, taking the layering of archaeological remains and the [non]physicality of language as its two central metaphors. Tracing specific texts and vocalisations from the vicinity the work will explore audio snapshots of the area mapping the way the local place and language has been enriched by a steady influx of differing vocal rhythms and structures.
Layers of language over the centuries seep through to the contemporary fabric, adding to a collective intelligence, so the work aims to develop a notion of non-linear time rather than a simple progression of singular historical events.
The preliminary source texts include: British/Brythonic, Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Medieval and Elizabethan English, French, Yiddish, Bengali, contemporary English.
Kerry is a visual artist and composer who has exhibited continuously since 1983 in Britain, Europe, the USA, Australia and China.
He works through various media, including drawing, digital media, installation, sound and music, to explore ideas about time and place. He is interested in the way we often migrate across mediums, and through different notions of time and place in our everyday lives and how these areas of translation or transformation are uncharted places of our awareness/consciousness.
Kerry is a visiting lecturer in Fine Art at the University of Hertfordshire, UK.
Supported by the Arts Council of England.
www.kjandrews.co.uk
