Urban Motion

From 24 Hour Musuem:

With its bold 1960s styling, Leeds International Pool has been loved and loathed by local people in equal measure, but now, prior to a major redevelopment, it is to be transformed into an iconic temporary artwork.

The pool has been a controversial building and an integral part of the cityscape of Leeds for the past four decades; now the disused sports complex is to become the site of an ambitious installation created by acclaimed international artists and architects OSA (Office for Subversive Architecture).

OSA are hosting The Accumulator, which will transform the building into a virtual water collector via a huge textile funnel in the building’s central glazed roof space.

Whilst we’re on the subject of Milwaukee, I simply could not miss the opportunity to let you know about Mark Brautigam’s ‘On Wisconsin’. This is large format work at its best.

If you’ve spent much time in Wisconsin then this will certainly be very familiar to you - and if you haven’t then I’m sure that Mark’s work will serve as a superb introduction.

Savour and enjoy.

Found this by way of ‘Film is not dead it just smells funny’. My best friend moved to Milwaukee in the late 80’s and so I visited the US quite often during the early 90’s, spending an awful lot of time doing the college party scene and road tripping here and there. This sublime photo somehow brought memories of cookie cut motels to the fore - something I imagine is also linked with the time I spent in Kenora, Ontario as a child.

Haunting work by Timothy Archibald

Well, I couldn’t contain my excitement any longer and decided I’d blab the news here in typical self congratulatory style: my photograph (right) titled ‘Levitation’ is going to be included in the forthcoming photobook ‘Homage to Yves Klein’ by the artist Susan Hiller.

The book will be distributed by the Institute of Contemporay Arts & Bookworks and will feature photographs by 40 photographers, all of the photos have been gleaned from the internet. The book is intended to be an artwork in its own right and as such the publication will be small (in the order of 1000 copies). There will be a companion publication titled ‘Homage to Marcel Duchamp’.

You can see some of the other works selected here.

From Metro.co.uk:

If ever a building project appears symbolic of post-industrial failure, it’s Park Hill estate in Sheffield. Inspired by Le Corbusier’s philosophies of machines for living in, and described as ’streets in the sky’, the buildings were so unpopular with residents that they were nicknamed San Quentin, after the American prison.

But on Friday night, Park Hill will be transformed by Swedish artist Annika Eriksson as the opening event of Yes, No & Other Options into a citadel of light. Eriksson’s Maximum Happiness is a perfect representation of the philosophy that unites the works by regional and international artists in the Metro-supported Yes, No & Other Options, which question the ambiguous possibilities of life in a post-industrial European city.

‘Park Hill is a monument of a particular architectural vision that has exhausted itself,’ describes Yes, No & Other Option’s curator, Berlin-based Dutch art critic Jan Verwoert. ‘Annika sees it as a manifestation of a social vision that is about to disappear, and she’s making it perform again.’ Yes, No & Other Options’ works are linked by an essay by Verwoert entitled I Can, I Can’t, Who Cares.

‘I was interested in something that could be perceived as a common ground,’ he says. ‘Being on an EasyJet flight from Berlin, with lots of Polish workers, I saw that common ground: a new economy with cultural producers, like me, but also car mechanics, all bound by work. Post-industrial labour works through always being in performance. You’re always expected to respond. I like the grey areas where you mess with what’s between yes and no.’

Inhabiting Verwoert’s in-between space, the artists chosen for Yes, No & Other Options, including Wolfgang Tillmans, Tim Etchells, Phil Collins and Tomma Abts, offer an imaginative range of possibilities. ‘There are some Eastern European artists on display whose work has a real philosophical irony: what do you do when you can do nothing? It’s about a spirit of resistance, not opposition,’ says Verwoert.

Park Hill estate, Sheffield’s most visible symbol of post-industrial decline, was almost excluded from Yes, No & Other Options. ‘Annika Eriksson was fascinated by it from the start,’ notes Yes, No & Other Options’ organiser, Jeanine Griffin. ‘She tried to resist it because it was too obvious. But it’s being redeveloped now, by Urban Splash and, as the promises of modernism have worn out, what’s left? In a more heritage city than Sheffield, Park Hill would be celebrated, and floodlit, like a castle.’