Frieze Projects East
02.08.2012
Frieze Projects East is the product of a collaboration between Frieze Foundation, CREATE, and London 2012 Festival comprising of six new site-specific commisioned artworks situated in the Olympic Host Boroughs: Barking and Dagenham, Greenwich, Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest. The projects utilise public spaces, including opening some previously closed areas, to deliver an interactive programme.
Curated by Sarah McCrory of Frieze Foundation, the commissioned artists are Can Altay, Sarnath Banerjee, Ruth Ewan, Anthea Hamilton & Nicholas Byrne, Gary Webb and Klaus Weber. The works are intended to engage residents and visitors alike, ranging in content and scale, free to enter and accompanied by a programme of talks, workshops for children and walking tours.
Charlton Park in Greenwich plays host to Gary Webb’s permanent and interactive structure Squeaky Clean, which combines elements of public sculpture with modular climbing frames and similar objects; Webb’s living artwork is built from steamed wood, polished aluminium and cast resin and is open for play daily from 1st August, a fantastic platform for introducing children to public art through its sour candy colour scheme…
Klaus Weber’s Sandfountain is a temporary play on ideas of artificial ornamentation; by re-engineering a three tier fountain to propel sand rather than water, the artist places emphasis on the objects and materials used whilst creating a visual pun, bringing our relationship with nature and our surroundings to the fore. Weber has made a number of equally humourous fountain works in the past including a previous Frieze Foundation Commission for Frieze Art Fair in 2003. Public Fountain LSD Hall, a one-room installation functioning as a proposal for a public building, included plans for a crystal glass fountain which circulated LSD. Weber’s work is based at 5 Sugar House Lane, E15 2QS.
In addition to these two works, Anthea Hamilton and Nicholas Byrne fill an empty and iconic East London swimming pool with inflatable sculptures; Ruth Ewan invites young people to programme an event at the Savoy; Sarnath Banerjee creates graphic, anecdotal billboards and local newspaper comic strips and Can Altay distributes large, mirror ball-like sculptures, attaching them to doors across Waltham Forest to be handled by local communities.
CHECK OUT THE PROGRAMME OF EVENTS HERE
