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Grinding Series
Grinding Series
9 - 23 Sept, 2016
SWG3 Gallery, Glasgow, United Kingdom
This video was the result of a residency in Glasgow Sculpture Studios, where the artist made a series of sculptures. The sculptures were then used as tools to engage with the urban environment. People were invited to interact with the pieces to create situations in the public space, re-defining functions of the object in relationship to their surroundings.
For more information about the project Grinding Series, please click the icon:
Grinding Series
by Donagh Horgan
Glasgow is a city punctured by urban
experiments. Voids and tears in the urban fabric where housing and industry
once thrived, leave scraggly edges littered with the detritus of patches in the
urban realm. Cities are scarred with memories of places that have been removed,
leaving behind slabs and metal. Spaces that were closed off by hoarding and
fences, grasses blowing through old plans and rusty regeneration. Modern
artistic practice seems to frame this post-industrial landscape in semi-ironic
kitsch, often ignoring the very human qualities that basic urban infrastructure
can evoke. Yet it is among the thrown-away forgotten spaces in the city, that
the most radical of creative practice can thrive. Cities like Sao Paulo, Berlin
and Glasgow have built cultural reputations on their engagement with their raw urban
decay seeping into the street and facilitating new types of artistic endeavour
and public engagement. The public realm, cluttered with the urban furniture to
poke and prod people around our city can also guide us to new understandings.
In his work, Gustavo Ferro interrogates
the mundane, everyday objects – formal and informal – that form the minutiae of
cogs that facilitate the city. Informed by the brutalist playground of Brazil,
his art makes elastic that very rigid of urban infrastructure –road barriers,
kerbs and bollards. His output until now
follows a narrative that explores these banal anonymous relics, a path that can
be traced to the current work. His Piquetes
Anônimos (ongoing project) demonstrates the artist’s willingness to engage
with the underlying human aspects of these objects, exchanging the handmade timber
and concrete posts for handmade replicas. Ferro asks us to question the art and
the artist, the canvas being the city, inherently open and malleable. In his
practice he takes manipulates often functional concepts and artefacts,
provoking us to see them in more fluid, animated ways. His drawings of twisted
and looping barriers, allow us to view taken-for-granted functional objects, through
an almost psycadelic prism as one was tripping through the city convulsed.
His residency in Glasgow presented
opportunities in a new yet familiar context. With a gluttony of abandoned
spaces and adorned with layers of urban bling in in a metal and concrete
bukkake, Glasgow is inspiring as the quintessential gritty post-industrial
backdrop for modern art. Disparate neighbourhoods are draped in rings of hard
roads, connecting bridges, grey repeating barriers and tokenistic public
furniture. Yet there is a unique language and materiality among these textures
that can often glisten in the neon-grey sky. Ferro’s Grinding series injects life into the generic metal tubing that
forms the balustrade to Glasgow’s ballroom. His sculptures bring an almost
musical quality to the material, their appearance in space seeming like
graffiti doodles on live space, and Instagram.
His desire to use the artworks as devices to dialogue the public in situ bring
an extra dimension to his work, and points to a new level of engagement with
his subject matter. Themes around public and private space, ownership, security
and authority all present in his work with the Grinder series. Employing a tactile playfulness with the
otherwise clunky, ugly functional subject matter allows us to envisage a more
porous society – away from constant surveillance and rules. Developing an idea
of the city as a playground allows us to seek out new ways to improve our
public infrastructure and prototype social innovation.
Donagh Horgan, is a design strategist and architect based in
Glasgow.