Why do street lamp posts always have to be straight? Shouldn’t a telephone booth – since it’s no longer in use anyway – be twisted once in a while? And should the walls of a house sometimes have a zip? The British artist Alex Chinneck answers questions like these with his artworks on the streets, squares and house walls of Bristol.
The online magazine dezeen also recently reported on Chinneck’s work: “Chinneck – whose recent work includes a six-metre-high looped canal boat in Sheffield – is known for his surreal public installations, which he defined as ‘intelligent sculptures that can laugh at themselves’“.
dezeen writes: “First Kiss at Last Light is two sets of intertwined lampposts. His latest project is a trio of permanent street furniture designs for Assembly, a workplace and waterfront park in Bristol.“ (Photo linked with dezeen)
According to dezeen Chinneck said about this work of art: “I wanted to create contemporary sculptures but in a style and materiality akin to the Victoriana of the neighbouring historic stone wall and cast iron railings of the harbour. That period of design and manufacturing has associations with solidity and rigidity, and the flowing forms of the lampposts subvert that with apparent fluidity.”
Façade with zip; Photo linked with alexchinnec.com
On his own website, Chinneck doesn’t say much about himself, limiting himself to the following sentence: ‘From carefully crafted objects to monumental public sculptures, Alex Chinneck’s artworks make the everyday extraordinary.’ All the more comprehensive is the variety of works that he shows under the heading ‘Projects’.
Fire in the Jelly, is what Chinneck calls this work. (Image linked to alexchinneck.com)
