Showing posts with label corporate art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label corporate art. Show all posts

Tuesday, 16 June 2015

Ten unusual places to find art

Art in unusual places

1.  An Asian restaurant
Wallpaper by Debbie Plaskett (from near Bury St Edmunds)
Spotted at the (now defunct) Dojo Noodle Bar (Cambridge).




2.  A café.
Mural spotted at the Box Café on Norfolk Street (Cambridge).




3.  A bookstore shop window.
Justin Rowe's book sculptures, seen every advent time (and beyond) in the Cambridge University Bookshop.  Read my blog post.




4.  An airforce museum.
Seen at Duxford Air Museum (near Cambridge).  Read my blog post.




5.  A natural history museum
Discovered at the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences (Cambridge).  Read my blog post.




6.  A hotel
Spotted at the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel, on the river Cam.  Read my blog post.




7.  A swimming pool
The Diver, by Esther Melamed.
Found at Parkside Pool (Cambridge).





8. An airport
Secret Forest Trails, by Nelda Karklina
Stumbled upon a few years ago at Luton Airport.  Read my blog post.




9. A hospital
Jim Anderson's mosaic at Addenbrooke's Hospital (Cambridge). Read my blog post.




10. A round-about
Newmarket Road! (Cambridge)  Read my blog post.





Not so unusual:

Finally, you might think that libraries were unusual places for art.  Books? Yes.  Art?  Not so much.


But I learned, during my blog quest to find art in Arbury, that this is not so.  Libraries are, in fact, excellent places to find art, and it's not at all unusual to happen upon a sculpture or a wall relief in a library.  Still, though, I wanted to append these pictures at the end of my 'unusual places' list.

Some art I've come across in Cambridge libraries:

Book art at the Central Public Library in the Grand Arcade.  Read my blog post.




From Audubon's book of birds.  Seen at the Cambridge University Library and blogged about here.




Owl sculpture in Arbury Public Library.  Read about it here.



Varallo, by Samuel Butler.  Seen at an exhibition at St John's College Library in 2013.




Have you come across some art in an unusual place?

And if so, where??  Let me know in comments.

Wednesday, 29 May 2013

Mysterious sculptures outside the Doubletree Hotel: Who made them?



Every week, I cycle past these two sculptures on my way to the gym.  They flank the entrance to the Double Tree by Hilton hotel in Cambridge.  (It's that hotel on the river Cam, next to where you rent punts.  It used to be called the Cambridge Garden House Moat House Hotel, for those who remember that far back.)


hotel1


It's easy to be snobbish about corporate sculpture.  Bland, pointless, smooth as the money used to pay for it, empty as a hotel bed just after the last guest has departed.

I was snobbish about it myself.  But then I stopped and really looked at these sculptures, and I found them to be surprisingly sweet.  They have now quite grown on me:  they're like two funny gnarled people, patiently standing there, day in, night out.

Left one

The left-hand one is made up of three articulated elements, with round smooth holes.


It looks at you like a beaky owl.

Close-up, it reveals an interesting surface and a twisted three-dimensionality.


hotel5


Right one

The right-hand one is a smooth white flame, with two holes.


hotel2

It reminds me of Henry Moore.  Or of Barbara Hepworth.




hotel3



I wonder who made them?  No signature is carved into their stone bellies; no plaque reveals their names.  Nobody in the hotel had any idea.  Hotel staff suggested to me that I write to the Ability Group who own this hotel chain; I did so a few months ago but haven't had a reply.



I'm not fabulous on materials, either.  Is this a local stone?  Is it granite, marble, concrete?  

So if you have an idea who might have sculpted these, or what their rightful titles are, or the date they were made -- do let me know!


What?  Two stone sculptures.  
When?  I'm guessing 1960s but could be any time between 1930 and 1990, really.
Where?  Outside the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel, Granta Place (opposite the Grad Pad).  Go to Scudamore's and keep walking towards Coe Fen.


Related post:

Mysterious Cambridge rocks at the Classics Faculty:  Who is the sculptor?


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