My Festival of Ideas talk: Power and Resistance in Sculpture After World War One

  Festival of Ideas 2015 Power and Resistance After Ww1

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.

Football statue in Cambridge

Last year, Cambridge revived its plans to erect a statue to football in the town that  invented football (Australian readers:  this is soccer).  The council revealed the 4 sculptors under consideration.

Mark Titchner.  Above left is his version of the Channel Four logo.  And below is his proposal for Cambridge.

Neville Gabie.  Above: a work entitled 'South Africa'.

Below, Gabie's design for Cambridge.

Nayan Kulkarni.  Above: a commission in Medway.
Below: Kulkarni's design for Cambridge.

Finally:  Kenny Hunter

Above is his sculpture in front of the Travelodge in Orchard Park, Arbury, Cambridge.  Read my blog post about Arbury.

And below, Hunter's proposal for Cambridge (entitled Black Apollo).  I am not understanding this title.

Read more about the proposals at the Cambridge city council website.

My verdict?  We need more statues in Cambridge!  We need a statue to football!  (I am a football fan; I am a sculpture fan; so I am totally into this statue on principle.)  But we need FANTASTIC statues.  Not crap ones.

Other statues elsewhere:

Outside Emirates stadium, for Arsenal. Designed by 'MDM'.

Weird statue in Qatar of Zidane's headbutt.  (Why?)  By Algerian sculptor Adel Abdessemed

Sculpture of Alex Ferguson by Philip Jackson

Gigantic statue of Colombian player Valderrama outside his home football stadium in Santa Marta.

Footballer statue in Reykjavik (I don't know the sculptor).

Don't know where this sculpture is nor who made it (possibly the German sculptor Alf Lechner who makes very similar things).  Not even sure it's meant to be about football.  'Das Runde muss ins Eckige.' ('The round thing has to go into the angular thing.')

My favourite would be a sculpture that looks like Barry Flanagan's cricketer in Jesus College.  But about football.  Because it captures the dynamic motion of football.  Read my blog post about it.  Read my blog post about it.

Or a group sculpture like the one of a music band in front of the Perlan building in Reykjavik (I don't know the sculptor). Because it captures the team spirit of football.  And above all:  because it's interactive.  Which is the best thing about good public sculpture.  People can walk among these, imitate the poses, climb on them, get their pictures taken.

What would your preference be?

Royston Cave

Royston Cave.  St George or St Michael. 

.I visited the weird and somewhat grisly underground cave in Royston (40 minutes drive or so from Cambridge) with my friend Ellie.

It's a dank and mysterious place.

Tunnel down into Royston cave.

It's not a natural cave.  It was made by people sometime in the past.  Yes, it's that vague.  Locals rediscovered the cave by accident in the 18th century.  By that stage, nobody knew when it had been made or by whom or what it was for.

 Mysterious artists carved crude Christian figures into the stone.

Royston cave.  St George or St Michael, holding sword.

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Royston cave.  St Catharine.

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Royston cave.  Saint Christopher.

Royston cave.  Crucifixion.

Royston cave.  Sheela na gig and horse.

Here's another Sheela na gig I saw years ago in Wales (isn't she just faboulous?):

Sheela na gig, Kilpeck church, Herefordshire.
Source:  Wikimedia.

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Royston cave.  Sheela na gig.

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Read all about the Royston cave here.

I think this is one of the weirdest places to visit in the Cambridge area.  If you like a mystery, if you like subterranean caverns, if you'd like something adventurous to do with children, or if you've run out of sights to see in Royston:  this is the destination for you.

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Is there art in Arbury?

Is there art in Arbury?

Every town has a neighbourhood where art is not expected.  In Cambridge, this is Arbury.

A street in Arbury

Arbury is an area to the north of the centre and the river.  It is still sometimes called 'the Arbury', after the Arbury Estate developed there in 1957.   It's a low-income area, and in Cambridge it has a reputation for having a high crime rate (although statistics show that this is somewhat unfounded).

It's also an area with no reputation for art at all.  It's not listed in the 2012 Cambridge Walks nor in the Cambridge Sculpture Trails.   There are no galleries there, and the BBC Your Paintings database includes no works kept here.  This year, Arbury did have a couple of Open Studios (Derek Batty and Mohammed Djazmi), and last autumn, it did have one of the Street Pianos.

Cambridge Open Studios, July 2013, detail from the brochure

Street Piano (part of Luke Jerram's project), Arbury Court, Oct. 2012

Finding art in Arbury

Two studios and one piano that is no longer there:  that's not a lot of art.

But I was convinced there had to be more.  So I set out with my bike on a warm summer afternoon to discover if the perception of 'no art in Arbury' is based in any fact.  I went in quest of art in Arbury.

This is what I found:

Meadows Community Centre

I started out at the Meadows Community Centre on St Catharine's Road.  A very nice receptionist showed me to the hallway where there is a haunting exhibition of photographs from the University of Cambridge archives. What a surprise!!

The exhibition is called Dark Strangers and was originally curated by the artist Abdul Hakim Onitolo for the Black & Minority Ethnic History season in 2009 -- but it's now on permanent loan to the Community Centre.

A sign on the wall explains (in Onitolo's words):

The photographs in the show are from a mixed variety of sources and influences in how they are taken and their purposes.  They serve an anthropological, historical and referential purpose and are a legacy of times past that we are still reconciling and trying to relate to our present situations.  The photographs are taken by a variety of explorers, historians, social anthropologists and enthusiasts.  T. J. Alldridge being one of the more prominent even had a book published:  The Sherbro and its Hinterland (1901).

Photo from the Dark Strangers exhibition, Meadows Community Centre, Arbury, Cambridge

I like this image of a studious man.

Dark Strangers exhibition

So strange, these relics of an indeterminate past.  Not dated, not captioned.  Where are these men?  And what are they doing with those suit jackets?  Amazing pin-striped trousers.

Dark Strangers exhibition

Eyes from a colonial past.

Dark Strangers exhibition

And where is this lonesome building, photographed as if in the middle of nowhere?

Dark Strangers exhibition

I am intrigued by the German pharmacy:  Deutsche Apotheke, run by "W. Richter & Co."

There is more art outside the Meadows Community Centre:  Graffiti by the committed and enthusiastic Blight Society.

Graffiti by the Blight Society, Meadows Community Centre, Arbury, Cambridge

Graffiti by the Blight Society

Graffiti by the Blight Society, detail

Graffiti by the Blight Society

I couldn't find out who made this mosaic wall, with its little mosaic people.  Parts of it (the ovals showing sports activities) were crumbling which was a bit sad.

Mosaic wall, Meadows Community Centre, Arbury

Mosaic, Meadows Community Centre, Arbury, Cambridge (detail)

I walked through the Community's Centre café, past the childcare rooms, and found some rather good ironwork.  I don't know who made it or when (the Centre was founded in 1997 so perhaps it dates to that year?).

Wrought iron gate, Meadows Community Centre, Arbury

Lovely nature symbolism.  If only I could do botany and identify flowers...!

Wrought iron work, Meadows Community Centre

Wrought iron work, Meadows Community Centre

Wrought iron work, Meadows Community Centre

Arbury Court Library

If you ever want to find art, two good places to start are with a local library and a local school.  Look what there is in the inner courtyard of the Arbury Court Library!

Owls by Tony Hillier, Arbury Court Library

Owls by Tony Hillier (detail)

The sculptor of these owls, Tony Hillier, is a bit of a Cambridge eccentric and maintains a large ramshackle studio in Histon (to the north of Cambridge), full of his iron creatures and quirky beasts.  It's open to the public, too.  

I have no idea who sculpted this jolly buddha:

Buddha, Arbury Court Library

Arbury Schools

I didn't go into any schools so saw only the outsides but even so I was pleased to find quite a bit of art.  Here's a mosaic (possibly showing the school's emblem?):

Mosaic, Mayfield Primary School, Arbury

And this dashing bird of paradise:

Mural, Mayfield Primary School, Arbury

The dragon seems very much in the style of Tony Hillier (sculptor of the Owls in the library) but I don't know if this is one of his.  It's a fun logo for a school.

Dragon, Arbury Primary School (possibly by Tony Hilliers?)

Orchard Park Community Primary School has this fun gate.  It reminds me of Matthew Lane Sanderson's gate for St Faith's School on Trumpington Road.

Orchard Park Community Primary School, gate by Adam Booth

Wrought iron with colourful enamelled "monsters".

Orchard Park Community Primary School, gate (detail)

Orchard Park

I had read about this new development in north Arbury, started around 2007 by Gallagher Estates.  I was excited to be cycling around this new estate and seeing the variety of architectural styles employed (the developers' website doesn't name individual architects).

Orchard Park, Arbury, house

Orchard Park, Arbury, another house

Considering that Cambridgeshire's public art policy requires 1% of a property development budget to be spent on public art, I found very little art in Orchard Park.  I did, however, discover three works that might qualify:

Some coloured glass stuck to the façade of the Premier Inn.

Coloured glass sculpture by glass artist Chris Wood, 2008-2009, Premier Inn, Orchard Park, Arbury

A bronze deer in front of the Travelodge (lots of hotel art here).  Some joker had stuck a lime green sponge onto the sculpture's horns:  clearly there's interaction going on with the art.  No idea what the tyre symbolises or if the deer has local connotations for what used to be Arbury Park.

Urban Deer or Second Glance at a Roe Deer by Kenny Hunter, Travelodge, Orchard Park, Arbury

Finally:  two groups of stones.

Stones by Unknown, Orchard Park, Arbury

Art or nature?  They remind me a lot of the rocks at the Classics Faculty.

Another view of stones, Orchard Park, Arbury

One of the stones by Unknown, Orchard Park, Arbury

I ended the day with a refreshing fruit salad in the shade, just a bit further from the  groups of stones.

Lunch at Orchard Park

Is there an 'art-less' area where you live?  Why not go there on an expedition?  You never know what you might find...  :-)

More about Arbury:

Wikipedia page

Roman Arbury, Sylvia Plath and the 'Arbury Coffin'

Related posts:

Graffiti on Newmarket Road by the Blight Society

Cambridge critters

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