In 2005 I installed seven large red balls on Grasmere in the Lake District. I liked the colour red before then or course, but for me that piece changed the way I look at the colour in the landscape, and in art in general.
Balls to Grasmere - 2005
It was said that Constable and Turner would compete with each other at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. Constable would do outrageous things like add a blob of red to a painting just before hanging. (oh! the rebel).
My first car was red.
Renault5 MkI - 1976
Red is a lucky colour in China. In the ’80s the first traffic lights appeared in Beijing causing much chaos – why should cars stop at red lights? It’s a lucky colour.
Souvenir 2. Shanghai 2007
The installation on Grasmere worked as the red balls filled a gap in the palette of the landscape. In this way the colour works as a visual accent adding a focal point or point of reference within the landscape.
Red Cubes - Ullswater, Cumbria. 2010
Wrapped yew from colour workshop, Brockholes, Windermere, Cumbria 2009
walkway and jumping bridge in the Garden of Cosmic Speculation, by Charles Jencks. Portrack, Dumfries & Galloway.
Lily - Tatton Park, Cheshire. 2010
Red form in the snow - North Pennines. 2010
Shelter - Newtown, Powys. 2009
There something about scale and colour I find interesting. Same as intense coloured environments such as Olafur Eliasson’s ‘Weather Project’ installation in the Tate Turbine Hall, and Annette Messager’s ‘Casino’ at the 2005 Venice Biennale. These installations, as well as the immense ‘Marsyas’ piece by Kapoor, have in their own way helped influence my attitude towards space and place through colour.
Marsyas by Anish Kappor - Tate Modern, 2003
'The Weather Project' by Olafur Eliasson, Tate Modern, 2004
Casino by Annette Messanger at the Venice Biennale 2005
Cloudcube - Lancaster University. 2009
Dotted - an installation in Robert Stephenson's historic factory, Newcastle. 2005
Eliasson used specific use of the colour in his 2007 Serpentine Pavilion, although not to the extent of Jean Nouvel in 2010. Nouvel making great use of the variety of green within Hyde Park with which to juxtapose his rhapsody of colour.
Lamp detail from 2007 Serpentine Pavilion by Olafur Eliasson
Serentine Pavilion 2010 by Jean Nouvel
Serpentine Pavilion 2010 by Jean Nouvel
Enjoying the reds – and the stories of last year too
Reds made me think of of Bernard Tschumi’s follys at Parc La Villette (don’t know why – analyse that). Also of the time I signed off a red proof for a 8ft fibreglass figure and placed an order for 30 – they came back orange…!This was my introduction to Glasgow sectarianism, spending a summer installing 8ft ‘Orangemen’ in public spaces around the city – oh yes, colour is important on many levels! (“Journeymen” project in the Urban menu on mattbaker.org.uk)
cheers, Matt
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