The venue for this exhibition, ‘The Trial’ was very suitably the old police station in the middle of Bristol. The scene was set by the entrance.

an atmospheric entrance to the show

Gold Standard made a re-appearance standing in for bureaucratic obfuscation and deliberate misleading. It blocked the doorway and promised entry where none was to be found

The way in

A promised entrance

Almost everyone went towards the light and had to return along the very narrow corridor to get into the exhibition space and the video, a panegyric to a cathedral of retailing.

Beyond, in a lit space, was my tie installation. Hanging from threads were twelve Zipper-ties. I wore a badge which read ‘Ask me about Zipper-ties’, so I will tell you about Zipper-ties:

The Zipper-Tie is a wonderful American invention, the tie part is functionally the glider of a zip. The zip’s ends are joined at the top making a loop which goes over the head.  The tie can then be pulled up to fit under the collar; to the gentle zzzz of the zipper teeth. Once positioned correctly, there is a catch which prevents the tie from coming loose.

Find out more about Zipper-ties at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KTxhnaoVEw

Reasons to buy a Zipper-tie:

§         Not many people know how easy life can be with a zipper tie

§         Five seconds to put on a zipper tie

§         Its strong and durable

§         It’s a time saver

§         It’s very neat

§         the size always appropriate to your neck

§         Perfect knot – every time

§         Perfect length – every time

§         The grace and finesse of a regular tie with the ease and convenience of a clip-on.

§         Everyone should have at least one zipper tie

§         If you wear a tie every day you HAVE to buy one today!

Grant Heaps (he of bow-tied elegance) alerted me to the Zipper-tie, recalling it from his youth, of course I had no idea what he was talking about,  but I found a single specimen after he had left Elsewhere on his train trip.

For K, the zipper-ties start off with wide open zippers inviting use and promising ease, efficiency and end to worry. With the zipper pulled up snugly around the neck, they proclaim sartorial confidence, smart appearance and constant perfection, but as the noose tightens horizons narrow, possibilities diminish, focus is blinkered and thought is constrained. The final tie, with a tiny loop, is ‘Garotte’. The tie was taken up freely and consciously,  it was worn with pride, but when it became a  limiting restraint  it was not rejected.

Joseph K and the Amazing Technicolor Necktie

The ties were drawn on paper from ties in the Elsewhere tie Archive, the date probably between the 1940s and 1970s.  The one on the extreme right is undoubtedly 1970s, a handsome, heavy silk Jacquard number, which judging by the amount of wear,  been someone’s favourite. The structure of these ties is based on that of the single Zipper-tie in the collection.

The wall of ties at first meeting

Being interested in logic, classification, cladisitc trees and such (having been a zoologist in a previous life), I fancied that the application of the Dewey Decimal system to the tie collection might give interesting results – a Tie Library, no less.So down they came and proved to be in a fairly disheveled state. Some were washed, all were ironed.

Tie washing; homage a Robert Gober

Ties in the sink

Ties dry on the fire escape

The ironed ties were then sorted by type of tie: Zipper-tie, clip-on or regular long tie. A  fourth category, for bow ties, was set up in honour of Grant Heaps, who defied the temperature and always appeared perfectly turned out in a long-sleeved shirt and neat bow tie, despite no bows having turned up.  The long ties were sorted by fibre content; the largest group being the ‘unlabeled’ category.

Ties sorted by fiber content

Once sorted the ties were individually labeled with a number.

Ties numbered

Numbering equipment

Numbering in progress

With a number the ties could not escape, each was recorded in a spreadsheet and classified according to state of preservation, type, fibre, colour, pattern, maker and other labels, price, sartorial advice and width. All the ties were then individually photographed.

The ties from the wall gave me my first two or three hundred, then I was brought reports of a nest of ties in the Wardrobe room; a room so full of clothes it was very hard to extract a garment unharmed. There below a rack I found the ties; more and more of them. Every time I stepped into the room more emerged from hiding places under things. After the five hundredth I dared not put my nose round the door again.

So now I have massive quantities of digital data to deal with. The first outcome of all this was a set of four postcards from some drawings I made.

the Elsewhere Necktie Archive - Boring Ties

the Elsewhere Necktie Archive - Pink Ties

the Elsewhere Necktie Archive - Striped Ties

the Elsewhere Necktie Archive - Interesting Ties

Now Im working on making a complete catalogue of the Archive which will be published in due course. Also working out how to date the ties.

I have to acknowledge wonderful, helpful conversations with professional librarian Suzi Posa who had just moved to Greensboro and came to check out Elsewhere, and with Dave (the dog owner) who turned out to be most knowledgeable on tie history, as well as all the interest from other passing people and, of course, the denizens of Elsewhere.

The book is entitled – A Book of Books I:  Books which might be made.

A great work of fiction.

Mission headquarters

Artist at work

West Brom is a town with very apparent downsides. A visitor from outer space perched at its edge: The Public, couple of abject shopping precincts, a bus station and a bustling street market make up   ‘downtown’.

The Public, and mobile libraryu

ThePublic, front (or back) door

In the shopping precinct

A rival to The Public, The Private rises from the rubbish; ‘Enter for Savings’ is written across its glowing, pink front door; but who will make the savings, Sandwell Council or the shopper? The string around the building is a barrier to emphasise its private nature. Peer through none too convenient windows to see the tempting merchandise within.

The Private

Merchandise within

Given the idea of regeneration, the first thought of any city council is ‘We need an iconic building’. Be careful what you wish for; West Brom got one and it cost them about three times the budget. Once lottery funding ceases they will not be able to keep it open. Tesco is anchoring a new shopping mall.  My solution was that clearly The Public should be gifted to Tesco. With found materials I constructed the solution to West Brom’s problems, planning, regeneration and fiscal: The Private. The Private is a form of question to West Bromwich – since the future funding of The Public seems to be so unsure, might this controversial and expensive building on the fringe of Tesco’s  behemoth of a site, not be turned over to Tesco for their use?

The Private in situ

Having spent an hour or two on the street, where no one felt the need of helping themselves to Tesco Value toothpaste or custard powder, the piece was brought into headquarters, an empty shop, and put in the window. Here it spent a month or so, delighting passers by; particularly employees of The Public, apparently.

The Tesco redevelopment plans were criticised for lack of  commitment to high quality design, uninviting pedestrian access and non-durable materials. Town Square (around The Public) was praised for the quality of its design and materials. It is immaculate landscaped with seats, pine trees and… nobody. Just around the corner is the teeming market on the High Street. A tolerably warm day; benches are largely occupied, people are hanging out, a God-botherer has a decent audience. Queens and Kings Squares, the down-at-heel shopping centres, are heaving with shoppers, flanneurs, sitters and chatters. So what will the new development do to all this?

Will all the street life transfer leaving the old streets empty, looking sadly at the backs of this inward facing retail paradise? Will the new contain seats for all the people who now come to meet and chat? Will The Public and Town Square come into their own and get a  share in the bustle or continue their pristine, wall-flower existence? Do we prefer our money taken in profit by private companies or our taxes, council taxes, the Lottery,  over-spent  by the public sector?

They do have something in common

 

King's Square on a rainy day

The idea was of monotony, to break the boredom barrier, to see if over time the drawing might change. After around 40, I looked back, the first dozen or so were clearly rejects, the rest were just there. Not sure what to make of them I stopped – too early. The display was grid-like, the grid, prison-like. The concept was a phalanx of policemen and how they might block access, or fill a space.

Drawings in the window

The grid

Drawings as a barrier

More drawngs

More drawngs

Three garments were made of these erstwhile police jackets:

The Skirt of Police Solidarity – three jackets buttoned together circle the wearer’s waist, each has his hands on the shoulders of his neighbours; the gloves shake hands across the shoulders. These jackets are brothers; they will stick by each other.

The Skirt of Police Solidarity

The Cloak of Police Protection – made up of five jackets in three tiers, their arms reach up embracing and protecting the wearer. But the raised arms might equally be imprisoning, or those of fawning supplicants.

The Cloak of Police Protection

The Cloak, in the studio.

The Umbrella of the Law – the cover for a garden umbrella grafted onto a police jacket, the huge skirts could offer shelter to sinners, as the Madonna della Misericorda protects her own.

The Umbrella of the Law

These words about the garments speak of protection and embrace, so also of the obverse; exclusion and partiality. The jackets are symbols of authority; or were. Now they are rejects, actors’ jackets with buttons from three different constabularies – or none.

The three garments are large and very heavy; wearing them gives an immediate feeling of importance; the weight and volume of fabric swirling around one. This feeling of power is of course one of the functions of a police uniform (but not of all uniforms; think Burger King). Anonymity seemed to be an important in the wearing of these garments, authority is invested in the garment not the wearer; anonymity is a protection for the wearer. Hence the masks, which were, I think, the right instinct but not well made. For the Oxfam show, the models had a haughty, distant look; people not to be tangled with.

In L.A.P.D. Uniform (1993), Chris Burden used giant sized police uniforms in response to Los Angeles’ violent riots of the previous year. Sized for men of over seven feet, 30 uniforms were hung around the walls of the gallery. Should I feel intimidated or protected?  Surely, with nothing to hide I have nothing to fear, but in this age of paranoia, do I know what constitutes suspicious behaviour?

Postcards suspended

Sixteen – not a time of life I wanted to think about atall, and very long ago.  For this installation vandalism took place. I wanted the cards to be precious enough that the brutality of spray stencils might be regretted; though I wasn’t brave enough to use my most treasured cards! The stencilled images represent a miscellany of thoughts and memories about the time when I was sixteen.

Vandalised postcards

The words on the back largely seem very negative, but through this they point both to some ways in which the world has perhaps improved, as well as to one’s own failure to fall by the wayside. The messages are terse, intended to convey the thought in as few words as possible, however people found them largely unintelligible. Clearly economy overcame clarity.

Picture postcards

More cards

Reality more harsh though, in the heat of the lovely sun-drenched skylight helium leaked out of the balloons in minutes rather than hours and the cards sank gracefully floorwards. After resting daintily on their edges they finally flopped flat on the floor, where people stooped to read their inscrutable words. Later, some were tied to rafters so regaining mid air.

Although sparse, this installation managed to occupy a large amount of space. The balloons enabled the cards to take up the centre of the room, suspended at nose height they had to be negotiated around, both work and viewer in motion. The postcards received their comeuppance when the balloons deflated and they ended up on the floor.

Picture postcard on high

The Brussels Airport Sheraton.

When the book was accepted for Picture This, the Brighton exhibition and conference, the curator asked if it could be projected. This clarified to me the importance of the book’s physicality, the look of the printing and the paper used. So we agreed that it would be displayed in front of a projection. I made a slideshow of hotel bedrooms. The book went on a pseudo-antique table with a pseudo-antique lamp; perfect hotel furnishings.

Installation view

A strong synergy was evident between the sequence of desolate, and increasingly desperate, anonymous hotel rooms and the delusional world of the book.

The book in a bedroom

The book in a diffent bedroom

For this event I wrote:

‘Huge and monumental, but flimsy, Gold Standard dominates its space through size and forces people to negotiate around it. It makes assertions and promises it is in no position to keep, convinced that its ersatz glitz and cheap glamour will overcome all objections. It demands respect, is not given authority but takes it.’

Glove Box, the window

Glove Box, the front door

In the Glove Box

Henge-style arches

Into the shop window

We advertised a ‘ceremonial destruction’ for the end of the day, an important part of the installation. It is a gesture of dealing with the installation not on its terms, but on terms from a dimension of which it has no understanding.Thinking about The Trial by Kafka, the hero, K, acquiesces to laws which he infers from his dealings with his prosecutors. In the penultimate scene he is told a story by a priest, which suggests that there is no necessity for him to submit to the impending judgement if he can look beyond these rules, out of their dimension, if he can ask the right questions. In essence he is seen as a voluntarily participant in his fate. So the destruction of Gold Standard is a refusal to abide by its rules, to be seduced by its cheap glamour.

Destruction progresses

Gold Standard has further to go, a simple labyrinth perhaps, where an obvious entrance does not give access to a visible centre whereas a less obvious one might do so; or again it might not… I would like to try setting it up in a more confined space, where one would not be able to see or foresee the journey laid out through the installation. A vision of golden boxes spread by wind in the open air is also one I find interesting. Here the boxes would be at the mercy of the weather, out of their element, becoming litter and detritus; another short-term installation.

Then I had an idea of laying an endless, horizontal, column of the golden boxes along the corridor in my studio building. Someone suggested this arrangement was like a Carl Andre ‘…but wrong’, the boxes’ height from the floor not being  ‘elegant’.

My interest in this installation was the boxes’ three dimensional, space-filling properties and their apparent disappearance towards infinity along the windowless corridor. In fact Andre has used more three-dimensional materials; Joint (1968) and Secant (1977), were both lines of objects leading through the landscape. The way they follow the rise and fall of the ground brings to mind the man-made, rigid sqareness which other of his works require. In this respect Gold Standard is a poule luxe; out of doors it would very rapidly succumb. Andre acknowledges a debt to Brancusi, but his claim was to have put ‘Priapus down on the floor’.

In July I was invited to join with Island Projects for their show, Harsh lines and Spongy Surfaces. It was concerned with the architectural environment and our reationships to it.

My piece was installed but a rather celebrational person collided with it late on the opening night and it became slighty ruinous, which suited it well and gave it a  more poetic air. After that we thought a ceremonial demolishment at the end of the show would be a suitable conclusion.

In November, havningbeen unable to fulfil my promise to contribute Gold Standard to the BV entrance during the Open Studios event (due to the birth of a grandchild), I decided to try out the boxes in the entrance anyhow. Eleven boxes in the entry-way made a very different sort of installation, one which, I felt, commanded the space well. (Shame about the Open Studios, a huge success apparently, but the entrance was filled with food sales and café tables; no room for floor-filling art).

Gold Standard in the studio entranceDifferent arrangementAnother way...Different arrangement

Different arrangement

Another way...