Hugh Marwood

Sunday, 20 October 2013

Bright Side Of The Road

Rain falls at sunset and even our tatty little street explodes with Turner's golden light.

Oil Change: Revisiting Richard Wilson's '20:50'

Richard Wilson, '20:50', Sump Oil & Stainless Steel, (Site Specific Installation), 1987

I accompanied some GCSE students from the school I work at on a trip to the Saatchi Gallery in London the other day. Whatever one may think of its patron, (and his influence over the art market), The Saatchi has become a significant feature in the contemporary art landscape, and it was the first time I had visited its current home in the Duke of York’s old HQ on King’s Road.

Richard Wilson, '20:50', Sump Oil & Stainless Steel (Site Specific Installation), 1987

I won’t pretend I was particularly captivated by the main exhibition on display, (a mixed show entitled ‘Paper’), although I hope the students got more from it than I did. However, it was interesting to see the extensive, well-lit galleries and especially pleasing to see Richard Wilson’s famous site-specific installation '20:50’ in its current home in the basement.

Richard Wilson, '20:50', Sump Oil & Stainless Steel (Site Specific Installation), 1987

For anyone who doesn’t already know, '20:50’ is created by tanking the entirety of whichever space it occupies with sheet steel, and flooding it with used, sump oil. The illusion is of a deep lake of oil, although I understand the actual tank is elevated and much shallower than one is led to assume. A steel walkway extends partially into the room placing the oily surface at about waist level, (and reinforcing the illusion of depth), although access to this is restricted.

Richard Wilson, '20:50', Sump Oil & Stainless Steel (Site Specific Installation), 1987

Far stiller than water could ever be, the viscous, black oil creates a vast, impassive mirror that creates a genuine sense of perceptual ambiguity. It’s a completely alien situation unlike any other one might witness, with its strangeness further enhanced by the heavy aroma emanating from the oil. I was intrigued by it in its previous, interim incarnation at County Hall but it works much better in the new gallery. Surrounded by off-white walls and dynamically accented by vertical supporting pillars, it is beautifully illuminated by a mix of ceiling light panels and daylight emitting windows to create a minimal environment suffused with shimmering atmosphere.

Richard Wilson, '20:50', Sump Oil & Stainless Steel (Site Specific Installation), 1887

’20:50’ is one of those grand artistic statements that might mean anything or nothing to the viewer. It might evoke thoughts and feelings about eternity, infinity, impassivity, reflectivity, unknowable depth, ‘the void’, spatial ambiguity, immersion or pretty much whatever profound associations one wants it to. It might equally speak of materiality and there’s also something vaguely disquieting about the idea of so much essentially toxic fluid gathered together in one place. Such large-scale open-endedness can result in spectacular empty gestures, (something Anish Kapoor’s work often suffers from these days), but I think ‘20:50’ avoids that somehow. First exhibited in 1987, Wilson’s oil appears to have found its true level in Chelsea and to have outlived its initial impact to become a work of lasting resonance.

Richard Wilson, '20:50', Sump Oil & Stainless Steel
(Site Specific Installation), 1987

‘Paper’ continues at Saatchi Gallery, Duke of York’s HQ, King’s Road, London, SW3 4RY until 5 November 2013. ’20:50’ is there for the foreseeable future, (I imagine).

Monday, 14 October 2013

Goosey Goosey Gander

Sometimes, no explanation is needed, - just a fun ride for the senses.

Nottingham Goose Fair, October 2013

Wednesday, 9 October 2013

Bradley Garrett: "Explore Everything' / Terminological Amendment

As I’ve routinely outlined, much of the source material from my artwork, (both visually and conceptually), comes from my wanderings around various cities with a camera. It’s an ongoing activity that I try, perhaps rather grandly, to ally with the respective spirits of Psychogeography, Flâneurism or The Situationist Dérive. In reality, it may be no more than the routine search for environmental/contextual stimulus that could be expected of any artist, but I hope there are certain attitudes of mind brought to my excursions that ally them, at least partially, with those theoretical traditions.

Whether carried out on foot, by bike or car, or indeed any other available transport means, I’ve been in the habit of referring to all this as ‘Urban Exploration’. However, last month I read an article, leading in turn to a little further online research, which makes me think I should adopt a different term for my activities.

Robert Macfarlane's Own Hero Shot. Photo: Bradley Garrett

The article, written by Robert Macfarlane for The Guardian [1.], was essentially a promo for a recently published book by American hipster academic and urban adventurer, Bradley Garrett. Garrett’s book, ‘Explore Everything: Placehacking The City’ [2.], is the culmination of his own PhD studies and participation in what others were calling Urban Exploration long before I ever adopted the label. In this context, we’re talking about those intrepid, adrenalised trespassers who mount planned incursions into abandoned industrial ruins, drainage and transport systems, construction sites, disused military installations and any secret place where access or free passage are restricted. I was well aware of the phenomenon, but hadn’t appreciated just how widespread, (indeed global), an activity it had become. In the article, Macfarlane even goes beyond the normal scope of a book reviewer by allowing Garrett and his associates to conduct him in a little underground expedition of his own.

Photo: Bradley Garrett

There’s a fairly obvious extreme or street sports aspect to all this and not a little of the high-fiving and whooping rad-dudery that often characterise those worlds, (although it’s clearly not an entirely male culture). Many ‘Urbex’ trespasses take place in filthy, dark, dangerous and physically demanding locations and the macho skills of spelunking, climbing, orienteering and sprinting, (to evade security), can all be called upon. Experience, research and careful pre-planning are essential. Injury and possible long-term ill health are obvious risks and there have been occasional deaths.

However, behind the hardcore bravado are a number of intriguing theoretical or psychological impulses behind these attempts to hack or subvert the highly prescribed/proscribed urban environments most of us now inhabit. There is an implied testing of how much freedom of movement remains to the average citizen and also of the tricky issues around private and official control of once public spaces. ‘Urbexers’ pose an overt challenge to the boundaries between legal and civil trespass and the (often unexplained) presumption of secrecy that pertains to so many sites. For some, clear political agendas run through the subculture as a whole. They may seek to uncover the possible (or imagined) conspiracies of silence, exploitation or sinister activity attached to certain sites or illuminate, (quite literally), how marginalised populations are forced to live rough or actually underground in a city’s hidden zones. Elsewhere, they may simply claim the right to access a panoramic view or vantage point that has been annexed for profit, (it costs £25.00 to view London from ‘The Shard’s’ summit).

Photo: Bradley Garrett

For others, the motivation appears more involved with a very human desire to simply explore the hidden rather than any specific political impulse. They take a delight in peeling back the multiple layers of urban geography to discover what lies beneath, (or indeed above), and seek out a vertical as well as horizontal reading of the built environment. This reflects a desire to understand the physical systems and infrastructure that make a city function, (underground railways, drainage, etc.), but inevitably leads also into reading the chronological strata that constitute it, (wartime remnants, industrial archeology, abandonment, earlier incarnations, past lives, etc.). Wherever the emphasis is placed, I think there is an unmistakable Psychogeographical impulse behind the phenomenon of Urban Exploration.

Photo: Bradley Garrett

There’s an essentially benign anarchy to it all too, coupled with a refreshing impulse to intrude non-destructively. The general attitude is one of simply occupying and witnessing a site for the sake of simply being there. In contrast to those who seek to alter, damage or ‘decorate’ forbidden locations, most Urbexers are content to simply ‘be’ in a place then document their discoveries in photographs and videos. Where a gesture has been required, hanging a removable banner or posting visual evidence and ‘hero shots’ on web forums have generally been sufficient. This process of routine visual chronicling and a delight in the physical appearance of generally overlooked or transitional places is of obvious relevance to my own creative habits.

Photo: Bradley Garrett

A major, inescapable connection is the theoretical legacy of The Situationist International. Desires to short-circuit the prescribed street plan, to experience the city with immediacy and subjectivity, or to sample experiences beyond the mere surface of things, are essentially Situationist in nature. This is true, be they political or artistic statements or just strategies to experience one’s surroundings more fully. Urban Exploration takes its place, alongside Graffiti and Street Art, Happenings, Pop-up or Flash Mob gestures, and the tented encampments of the Occupy movement, as they ripple out from Paris, 1968 and the wider Debordian moment. Above all, it is an explicit attempt to access a grittier, more vivid reality, however grimy or hazardous, behind the slick corporate facades and hypnotic, pixelated imagery of the Capitalist Spectacle.

Bradley Garrett: Underground Academic

Although his primary focus appears to have shifted, Bradley Garrett himself has been an enthusiastic participant in Urban Exploration. He was particularly associated with the London Consolidation Crew, - infamous for visiting every one of the London Tube network’s disused ‘Ghost Stations’, and for their climb to the top of the unfinished ‘Shard’ tower. ‘Explore Everything’ is his account of those years and the exploits and ultimate demise in the face of legal action, of the LCC. If he exhibits a typically American self-confidence and bushy-tailed desire to make each year more memorable than the last, (which could get a little tiring, I fear), he also brings a serious academic intent to the subject as his websites demonstrate. Whilst the www.placehacking.co.uk site is now archived, www.bradleygarrett.com remains fully active and covers the whole field of his studies as a Geographer and Ethnographer, as well as accounts from the Urbex front line. Both sites are full of his vivid photography, insightful writing and links to impressive video work. Particularly recommended among the latter are, ‘Crack The Surface:Episode I’ and ‘Episode II’ and ‘Urban Explorers: Quests For Myth, MysteryAnd Meaning’. Whilst the first two showcase many of the scene’s prime movers and shakers in action, the latter provides fascinating reflections on it from various academic viewpoints.

Even in my prime, I never had the physical prowess or reckless courage demonstrated by Garrett and his contemporaries and remain essentially risk-averse where physical jeopardy or legal action are concerned. Nevertheless, in my own cowardly way, I fully understand the curiosity that can lead one to poke the camera lens where it may not always be welcome in search of alternative readings of a city. I’m fascinated by these bulletins from travellers into regions I might not dare enter myself but really don’t think I can continue to apply the term ‘Urban Exploration’ to my own more sedate, (but hopefully, creatively valid), excursions. Perhaps, from now on, ‘Urban Observation’ or perhaps ‘Urban Documentation’ will have to do instead.

Postscript:

From reading Bradley Garrett's own blogging, I know he is, (slightly ironically), very protective of his own intellectual property. I hope he'll accept my appropriation of his images here in the spirit it is meant, (as a celebration of his work) rather than any kind of money making rip-off.

[1.]: Robert Macfarlane, ‘The Strange World Of Urban Exploration’, London, The Guardian, 20 September 2013

[2.]: Bradley Garrett, ‘Explore Everything: Placehacking The City’, London & BrooklynNY, Verso Books, 2013

Tuesday, 8 October 2013

Lighting Up Time

These images complete the story told in my last post, and the one before that.

They were taken at the end of the day as the light faded.

We went in search of a misplaced Utopia...

...and found ourselves in Paradise...

...as travellers raced towards the mouth of Hell.