Values and work
The Herbert Gallery in Coventry is having a new wing added. In a glass case on one floor, there are some pages from a sketch book with drawings and some quotes by construction workers involved in the project over the summer. I snapped one page above on my mobile phone – I thought these quotes said a lot about the values of the people working on the project. Just up the hill by the Cathedral and the Guildhall, you can see mason’s marks from 1200 or so…
Cormac Faukner has an audio installation on the staircase in the Herbert Gallery – 16 loudspeakers are triggered as you walk past them – each plays a sample of an instrument, and some a sample of speeches made when the Herbert Gallery was opened in the 1960s. Faulkner is curating some more stuff in Coventry early September…
Watches, bicycles, cars, the art and language movement, the cybernetic culture research unit. Coventry has been the birth place for all these remarkable innovations but has suffered a bit of empty nest syndrome since they went on to live elsewhere. It is time to pull all these influences back and create a new Thing for Coventry.
The idea of a festival devoted to ‘artists who use technology invented in the past 100 years or so’ is interesting.
Harry Shaw’s bold colours and improvised typography came as a welcome antidote to IKEA induced trance. Ruth and I think this has to by rhyming slang, but we are still working out what for.