COOL LEOPARD

The London Mastaba

Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s major new work on the Serpentine Lake in London’s Hyde Park nears completion as the last few barrels are hoisted into position.

On show from 18 June until 23 September 2018, The London Mastaba is constructed from 7,506 carefully stacked barrels and is Christo’s first major large-scale public sculpture in the UK.

The work accompanies an exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery, Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Barrels and the Mastaba 1958-2018, from 19 June to 9 September 2018.

“Leave my shoes, and door unlocked, I might just slip away...”

The Down at Heel exhibition may now be over, but you can still satisfy cravings for shoe-based culture at Shoes: Pleasure and Pain (V&A until 31st Jan 2016) and at Life and soul: footwear from the Islamic world (British Museum until 15th May 2016).

These two exhibitions seem to be the last in a run of recent exhibitions in London to focus on footwear which also included Life on Foot: Camper at the Design Museum and Rayne: Shoes for Stars at the Fashion and Textile Museum.

Images above from London Shoes 2015 (Down at Heel series)

Bexley

Old Montague Street

New Street, Bishopsgate

Unknown

Earl St EC2

Kings Cross

Cheshire St, Brick Lane

Old Castle St E1

Toynbee St, Spitalfields

Whitechapel

Exhibition Extended throughout December

Heels, soles, and other parts of mutilated and discarded footwear from India, Cuba and London, part of the Down at Heel exhibition, will continue to be on view at the Fazenda Cafe Gallery in Spitalfields throughout December. The exhibition has been extended from its initial run of the four weeks of November to the end of the year.

Exhibition announcement

Down at Heel (City Heels) 2015

Down at Heel (Cuban Heels) 2012

Down at Heel Panel Discussion, Covent Garden

Down at Heel Exhibition

Fazenda Café Gallery, Spitalfields

Opens 2 November 2015

A refreshing antidote to this summer’s splurge of exhibitions in larger institutions relating to the fashion and manufacturing aspects of shoes, Down at Heel takes a different approach by looking at footwear at the other end of its life cycle. Photographs of discarded footwear found in India, Cuba and London line the walls of the Fazenda Café Gallery in Spitalfields throughout November.

At an event in Covent Garden in July 2015 staged under the heading ‘Roundtable Conversations: Discussions about Art and Life’, panelists and audience members examined one group of photographs - Down at Heel (Karnataka) - in detail. 

The debate showed the breadth of different reactions these evocative images can elicit – for example, some observed a dark shadow of personal and urban decline, decay, destruction and death in the work. In contrast, a number of audience members responded to the work with joy, being reminded of the sense of liberty experienced by taking off your shoes and running free. Others felt it raised questions about the disposal and recycling of everyday items, while also noting the way the forsaken footwear took on anthropomorphic qualities. One panelist highlighted the inclination within the work towards listing, categorising and cataloguing. See how you react.

Down at Heel (Karnataka), 2009-10 is being displayed with two additional recent works in the same series - Down at Heel (Cuban Heels), 2012 and Down at Heel (City Heels), 2015.

Down at Heel – photographic series by John Cowpertwait is at Fazenda Café Gallery, 13 Leyden Street, Spitalfields, London E1 7LE throughout November. Open 8.30am-5.30pm, Mon-Sat. 

The Fazenda Cafe is near Petticoat Lane market. Liverpool Street, Aldate East and Aldgate tube stations are all around 5 mins walk away. London overground station Shoreditch High Street and Rail station Fenchurch Street are also close by.

Link to MAP here.

See the Fazenda Cafe Gallery site for more information.

Other Down at Heel related content:

Down at Heel (City Heels) 2015

Down at Heel (Cuban Heels) 2012

Down at Heel Panel Discussion, Covent Garden

Down at Heel (City Heels), 2015

Comprising images of shoe heels found around London this year, Down at Heel (City Heels) will be shown as part of the Down at Heel exhibition at Fazenda Cafe Gallery in Spitalfields throughout November 2015 during the Photomonth East London photography festival.

Images shown above:

Bank EC3V

St Stephen’s Row EC4

Clifford Street W1

Down at Heel (City Heels Cobbled ) 2015

Other Down at Heel related content:

Down at Heel (Cuban Heels) 2012

Down at Heel Panel Discussion, Covent Garden

If I Had A Hammer... (2014)

In acknowledgement of the emergent new Old Left, I publish these commemorations of the unity of farm and factory found on the walls of Naples in September 2014.

The Hammer Song - Written by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays, first recorded by The Weavers in 1949 and hits for Peter, Paul & Mary (1962) and Trini Lopez (1963).

See the full If I Had A Hammer... (2014) slideshow.

Other Neapolitan posts include:

Starring... Napoli (2014)

Utility Napoli (2014)

Neapolitan Hearts (’Hearts Not Minds’ series) 2014

Hammersmith to Strand Arrows (Little Arrows series) 2014

6th September 2014. After a visit to the home of the William Morris Society at Kelmscott House in Hammersmith London, a five-hour walk along the Thames Path back to Spitalfields. West to East, following the arrows along the way.

Don’t miss the full Hammersmith to Strand Arrows slideshow.

All Creatures... (Naples) 2014

Found huddled by the road in the backstreets of Naples, chipped and bruised orphans and urchins, their patina of dust and dirt hinting at the passing years.

Plucked from imminent oblivion and given a revised resting place in my temporary Neapolitan home-stay apartment, these simultaneously glorious and grotesque confections celebrating birth and childhood were destined for the scrap-heap.

A select few were back-packed for a diasporic existence in London. Sadly, their companions were left back by the roadside, heading for land-fill, or, with luck, perhaps the reprieve of a junk shop, or rescued to once again be given pride of place on a passing stranger’s mantelpiece.

See the entire All Creatures... (Naples) 2014 slideshow.

See also:

All Creatures... (Torrington Portraits) 2014

Padlocks (Gordon Square) 2015

One side of Gordon Square, London WC1, Saturday 1st August 2015.

Additional Panelist For Down at Heel Discussion

Club for Acts & Actors, Covent Garden, 23 July 2015, 7.30 - 9.30pm

Photographer and lecturer in Photography at Westminster University, Frank Watson, will be taking part in the Down at Heel Panel Discussion.

Frank’s photographic practice considers the spatial relationship between landscape and architecture.   

Frank will be joining Jenny Hobson, Ursula Deniflee and Tim Waterman for an  exploration of the impact of images - what do we associate with what is presented to us, how do we read a photograph without title or context and what are the stories we discover?

This is a rare opportunity to meet in the wood-lined concert hall of the Club for Acts and Actors in Covent Garden, also know as the Concert Artistes Association, or in short, the CAA.

Click here for more information and booking.

See more images from Down at Heel (Karnataka) 2009-2010 here and here.

Down at Heel Panel Discussion

Club for Acts & Actors, Covent Garden, 23 July 2015, 7.30 - 9.30pm

Down at Heel (Karnataka) 2009-2010 is being used as the starting point for a panel discussion exploring the impact of images - one of a series of talks under the heading “Round Table - conversations about art and life”.

Panelists include:

Ursula Deniflee - Psychotherapist, interviewer, Lebenskünstlerin and organiser of art related events, who also writes and maintains a private practice.

Jenny Hobson - Designer-maker of fashion accessories and costume. She has a lifelong interest in all manner of materials, particularly textiles, and is currently focusing on hats.

Tim Waterman -  Writer, lecturer, and landscape architect whose work focuses on landscape, urban, democratic, and food studies. He is a regular walk leader who explores the sensual city.

This is a rare opportunity to meet in the unusual wood-panelled concert hall of the Club for Acts and Actors in Covent Garden. There will socialising after the event, with drinks available from the club bar.

More information and booking.

Si(gh)t(e) (The Old Blind School)

On Streets of Hope and Hardman,

The Old Blind School. Once a site for poor eyes,

In transition an unwitting sight for sore eyes.

 Flake, splinter, crack.

Occasional tile.

 Wooden batten and joist.

Sockets, wires, rails and pipes.

 Splash smear stains – glue and water -

Brushstrokes. Palimpsestic paint.

 Worn torn wallpaper layers.

Fragments, hints, echoes.

 Scratch, scribble, line -

Traces of instruction and measurement.

 Arbitrary, random alpha-numerics,

Dislocated words, secret instruction,

 ‘X’ marks the spot.

Hidden hearts, crepuscular stars,

 Soon-to-be-extinguished like

Supernatural light switches.

 Ghost shelves and radiators -

Fixtures and fittings of past lives.

 Creamy cake with bright jam filling,

icing and ice cream.

 Sweet confections –

Battenburgs and icebergs.

 Many-cratered moonscapes,

Landscapes, contours and continents.

 Circles, Crop.

Lines, Nazca and Song.

 Dream time, race tracks,

Roads, routes, paths.

 Jagged fiord-coastlines,

Many-tributaried rivers, furrowed fields.

 Mountains and mushroom cloud.

Aerial views, valleys, grids, military maps.

 Scars, wounds, pockmarks,

Penetrative transgressions.

 Dancing fire-images breaking boundaries

Of Surrealism and Abstraction.

 Ernst grattage, Dubuffet, and Fautrier tachisme;

Fontana slashes, Jackson’s stalactite drips.

 Old Moore bones, shells, rocks  

And Dali’s entropic melts.

 Aged smiley with Beatle haircut,

Daddy Long Legs, weevil, whale,

 Eagle, cockatoo, crocodile.

Snake, reptilian Jurassic ferns.

 Teeth, tusk, trunk.

Diplodocus and Stegosauria.

 Arm, leg, head, mouth,

Whiskers, eyes, beak, snout.

 Faces, figures - human and

Wild beast – forth from walls.

 Shades of Chauvet, and Lascaux,

Ajanta and Elephanta,

In these troglodyte marks.

Si(gh)t(e) (The Old Blind School), (Accidental Abstracts series) 2014

The Old Blind School building, built in 1851, home to the first school of its kind in Britain, was one of the venues for the excellent ‘A Needle Walks Into A Haystack’ exhibition, Liverpool Biennale 2014.

Despite the engaging art on display, what caught my attention most was the incidental beauty of the decaying Grade-II listed building itself. It was also formerly home to a Trade Union Centre and The Picket music venue. The building was restored earlier this year and recently re-opened as a gastro-pub.

I was glad to be able to capture, record and preserve the often beautiful, sometimes disconcerting, always evocative, accidental abstracts found around the dilapidated building, on the ceilings, floors and, primarily, walls.

One Minute Photo Walk (Dulwich) 2015

One photo taken to the left every minute on the short walk from North Dulwich Rail Station to Dulwich Picture Gallery, 12 March 2015. 

Images by chance according to stipulation.

Individualisations, Absences, Disrupted Sequences (Calais) 2014

A variation on a theme. The back doors of huts on the beach at Calais, France, repetitive, yet each one subtly different.

No formal numbering sequence, as far as I could see, and minimal individualisation, but huts of variable shape and size. Don't think there were two the same.

Bright light, extremely hot conditions and very limited time to take the photos, as I had a date to meet friends for a slap-up seafood lunch.

ART15

For me, these were probably the best things in the ART15 fair at Olympia, London May 21 2015.

All Creatures... (Reigate Portaits) 2015

Portraits of a few of the many inhabitants at the home of friends in Reigate, Surrey, May 2015.

All Creatures... (Torrington Portraits) 2014

Portraits of a few of the many inhabitants of The Cabin in Devon.