Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
University College London : B - Fine Art
Nothing is Forever
‘Nothing is Forever’ celebrated the completion of South London Gallery’s £2,000,000 building project, bringing together wall paintings, drawings and text pieces by twenty international artists including Yinka Shonibare, David Shrigley and Laurence Wiener.
The show marked an important moment in South London Gallery’s history as it expanded into a formerly derelict house and new building incorporating the surviving walls of a former lecture theatre and library; seamlessly integrating art and architecture with each work destined to be embedded in the building’s fabric.
Impingement No. 56 ‘Boys’ surface’, was specially commissioned to fit the whole three-floor staircase designed by 6X Architects. This introduced a new investigation into the visualization of a form from higher mathematics into an international art context. ‘Boys’ surface’ is a self-intersecting, closed surface, a development of the Klein Bottle. Such mathematical models are generally viewed from outside the virtual object, in a similar way to viewing a sculptural object. It was my intention to direct the visitor to engage the compound curvature of the surface as it passes inside and outside of its contained volume. Placing it on the stairway, I was exploring continually changing viewpoints, guiding the visitor through the three lobes as they intersect, spiraling vortically in a dynamic quite different to the ascending spiral of the staircase. At ground-floor, the visitor enters below the surface, first encountering the form on the first flight of stairs.
Passing through the vortex at first-floor level, the visitor disengages with the surface at waist level on entering the second-floor corridor. During this voyage the elegant curves that Boys’ surface generates are deployed across various expanses of flat wall, inclined ceilings, stair details, balustrades; creating a particular counterpoint to the walnut handrail.
The work was realized through using a full-size paper pattern and through meticulous computer calculation and mapping.
