SPITALFIELDS PUBLIC ART
Spitalfields Public Art programme provides an exciting array of sculptures and soundscapes in and around Spitalfields market.
I Goat
The winning design of the inaugural Spitalfields Sculpture Prize will be unveiled in London’s Spitalfields on Tuesday 23 November.
Kenny Hunter’s hand-sculpted goat stands atop a stack of packing crates to create the 3.5metre high I Goat, which was inspired by Spitalfields’ rich, ongoing social history.
Scottish sculptor Hunter beat seven other shortlisted designs to win the £45,000 commission. Hunter is known for his monumental sculptures and his works have been exhibited worldwide.
The goat stands as a symbol for the various waves of migration that have found sanctuary in Spitalfields and helped to shape it. It is also an image of persecution and sacrifice, reflecting how each successive group of immigrants has faced their own combination of conflict, oppression and poverty, all eventually finding a new home in London. The crates on which it is perched reference the market as well as the area’s history of transience and human flux.
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.
www.paul-cox.co.uk
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.
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
Diamond, Myia Bonner 2011
New designer and award-winning jeweller Myia Bonner focuses her work on scale and form. Her first sculpture, Diamond is taken from one of her own pendant designs.
Myia collaborated with Metal Dynamics Ltd to create Diamond in powder-coated steel. The large scale of the piece is key to provoking maximum impact and highlights the complex and timeless emotions surrounding the diamond.
Since graduating from Middlesex University, Myia has shown her work in many contemporary jewellery galleries and exhibitions in the UK and Europe.
www.myiabonner.co.uk
The Silk Weaver, Lori Park
Lori Park is an American artist living and working in Marrakech. The Silk Weaver is her first major public work in London. It will be on display at the eastern end of Lamb Street until June 2012.
The bronze, which is 2 meters tall and weighs more than one ton, is inspired by women from different cultures who use dance as a form of communication. The sculpture also honors the French Huguenot silk weavers who were an important part of the economy of East London.
The sculpture portrays a female in the form of a dress-like figure, accented with delicate bronze-cast roses. The textures and surface movement in the fabric of the dress create a sense of music and rhythm.
The sculpture has an unusual cornflower blue patina, a reference to Novalis’ mystical blue flower- a colour that has come to symbolise romance, longing, and romantic love. The facelessness of the sculpture reflects the anonymity of London’s thousands of silk weavers, whose work remains, but whose identities are unrecognized.
The artist originally exhibited seven similar sculptures from this series, in mixed media, in a solo exhibition at the Museum of Marrakech. One piece from this series is included in the art collection of the US Embassy in Brussels. The Silk Weaver is the first sculpture of this series to be cast in bronze.
www.loriparkart.com
