Salford Psyche inspires new inflatable work at The Lowry
Salford psyche inspires new inflatable work at The Lowry
The city of Salford is the inspiration for two artists who have just won The Lowry’s first Transformations commission, a three year programme of new site-specific art work.
Simon Grennan (UK) and Christopher Sperandio (USA) were selected by a panel including former Turner Prize-nominee artist Richard Wilson and independent curator David Thorp, formerly Director of the South London Gallery and Curator of Contemporary Projects at the Henry Moore Foundation and Mark Doyle of The Lowry. Grennan & Sperandio’s new works will be shown at The Lowry from 3 May - 29 June 2008.
Transformations is The Lowry's £60,000 programme funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, to create new site specific work for the venue's Promenade Gallery, providing a rare opportunity for artists to experiment and test new approaches to their practice. The commission was open to mid-career artists based anywhere in the UK outside London who were looking to take their work in a new direction and raise its public and critical profile.
International artists team Grennan & Sperandio plan to create a series of giant inflatable artworks “inspired by the psyche of Salford”. In order to create their exhibition, they plan to spend the next three months researching people and places in Salford. They started their process by asking questions like “if Salford was a colour what would it be?” They intend to create three large-scale inflatable figures or ‘avatars’ of the city (a concept from computer gaming where a player creates an iconic representation of the character they control) which will be visible from outside the gallery. Grennan and Sperandio's approach draws parallels with LS Lowry who also attempted to visually record his experiences of the city by creating imaginary compositions.
A familiar name in the region, Simon Grennan was Director of Viewpoint Photography Gallery in Salford (1991 – 1996). Grennan & Sperandio have made a number of artworks in Greater Manchester over the last seventeen years, including Stalybridge Museum and Art Gallery, Cornerhouse, Arts About Manchester, Manchester City Art Galleries and most recently for Bigger Picture.
Reflecting one of the venue’s programming themes of exploring the unique architecture of The Lowry, an integral part of the Transformation brief was for the artists to work imaginatively with the inspirational qualities of the gallery space and propose ideas with high visual impact. Artist Bill Longshaw, who has just curated The Myth of The North for The Lowry and enjoyed one of his first big breaks as an artist on the Promenade in 2004, commented: “The great thing about the Promenade is its scale. The sheer height of the walls lend themselves into being transformed into buildings..or the side of a ship..or anything!”
Panel judges Richard Wilson and David Thorp commented on their decision, “The short list of candidates was very imaginative and varied. In the end we decided upon a proposal that combined simplicity of execution and display with complexity of idea. Grennan and Sperandio’s proposal allows space for experimentation and intuitive response to place and audience based upon proper research. It will combine spectacle and theatricality with this research into the locality that we thought would ultimately provide a poetic interpretation of the City of Salford. All in all, their proposal encapsulated best the elements we thought important for the final commission – accessibility; regional relevance; conceptual depth; excitement and quality.”
Grennan and Sperandio have worked together since the early 1990s, specialising in making cartoon, installations and video works which focus on the lives of people in the places in which they live. As part of the influential 'Culture in Action' exhibition in 1993, they worked with Chicago chocolate factory workers to design and produce their own chocolate bar. They have previously worked together on projects for the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Hayward Gallery in London, the Aarhus Kunstmuseum in Denmark and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, USA.
They will be given time, funding and support to research, develop and realise their new work which is set to respond to the unique aspects of the Promenade to positive and dramatic effect. As the Promenade gallery overlooks the Manchester Ship canal, the other quality of this particular space is its light and the way it links the inside and the outside of the building. Longshaw also observed how “it allowed what’s on the inside to merge with the docks, the water and the city beyond. The light and the mood of the space changes with the weather throughout the day.”
Richard Wilson and David Thorp concluded, “We felt it was essential that the commission should reflect what is happening now in art and provide the people of Salford and visitors to The Lowry with something that was truly world class while at the same time being accessible enough for people who were coming to contemporary art for the first time to understand and enjoy.”
Posted on Wednesday, 05 December 2007 under Press Galleries Press