THE LINE: VARIOUS LONDON LOCATIONS
On the Time Out description this
sculpture trail runs from the O2 to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. We did it the other way round but it was a
little misleading. There isn’t actually
a sculpture in the Olympic Park as the description suggests.
The walk though the park is lovely, and
something we’d never done before, but the first sculpture can’t be seen for a
long while into the walk if you start here. It may be possible that there might
be more added in the future.
The first artwork, called Network by Thomas J Price, is a sculpture of a young man standing casually
looking at his phone. A pretty normal
thing to see in London but this guy is an impressive 9ft tall and cast in
bronze.
The next part of The Line we apparently missed and I didn’t realize it until now and
I will tell you why; The only place we could find that lists the artworks and
has any form of map is the Line website. http://the-line.org/
This website is very difficult to use on
your phone – a mobile friendly platform would be the first thing you would
expect from an interactive accompaniment to a trail. The website didn’t work at
all on my phone and was temperamental on my friend’s phone. If it hadn’t worked then we wouldn’t have
been able to follow the line at all as there are very few signs along the
course of the walk and no maps or directions along the way. So we missed the video
installation that is around this area.
However the park, in which Network is located, is a hidden gem,
there are things to climb and jump on, trails, a tightrope and a rather
ingenious trampoline. A group had left
the remnants of a game of beer pong (apparently played with cranberry juice) on
their ping pong tables.
Next was a scenic route though Tesco’s
and to one of the more dramatic sculptures on the line. DNA
DL90 by Abigail Fallis incorporates shopping trolleys into the shape of a
double helix. The fact that this artwork
is in such close proximity to the Tesco’s and the canal is perfect as it conjures
up images of someone trawling these straight from the water and constructing
them where they stand. A child was
trying to climb up it when we got there (a feat he felt proud of considering he
was wearing skinny jeans, or so he kept telling his parents.) This sculpture
was commissioned by a supermarket chain but it doesn’t say which one and apart
from one handle apparently from Kwiksave all the other handles had the words
Muscular Dystrophy on them, the understanding of which was aided by the discovery
and interpreting of DNA.
The next piece was easily recognizable
as the work of Damien Hirst. Entitled Sensation, this piece is another one of
Hirst’s blown up anatomical models, this time, depicting skin. Compared to the other sculptures so far on
the walk this one is much more playful and colourful, it stands out of its
rather bland and empty surroundings.
The next stage of the walk is though
Cody Dock, a creative community that had a feel of a cult to it (according to
my friend), walking though you did feel like an outsider but they were at least
attempting to be welcoming with their little blackboard explaining what things
were for and the names of the chickens.
I would think the floating dome would be an amazing place to see a live
band. After this scenic walk the next
section is just a sad walk through an industrial estate that takes you to your
next location, which is Star Lane.
My sheltered boyfriend (who didn’t join
us on this trip) was suitably impressed with the name of this station, the DLR
are known for some awesome sounding names. For some reason there were no trains
straight to Royal Victoria, we had to go to Canning Town (otherwise known as
the most confusing multilayered DLR station in the world) and then on from
there.
I am pretty sure that this was the
location of an artwork that has since been removed, I can only assume because a
child climbed on it and then fell off, this was disappointing as there is no
mention of this on the website and you could in theory wander (considering the
awful map) round and round looking for it. From the website I can see this
missing piece is meant to be Consolidator
by Sterling Ruby which looks a bit like a geometric cannon.
However after giving up with this one we
found the huge and impressive bronze sculpture by the river called Vulcan by Eduardo Paolozzi. This is a
brilliant cubist representation of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and
metalworking. He is part machine and
part man with a strange pair of mismatched feet.
Not mentioned at this point on The Line
Website is the Martin Creed ‘sculpture’ which is probably the worst of all the
pieces of modern art. Work 700 is an iron girder of some
kind. Unfortunately the sign that
accompanies this artwork was missing so I have no way of knowing what this is
meant to mean, needless to say I am not a fan.
It’s not that I am contemptuous of Creed’s work in general, I studied
some of his pieces for my dissertation, I admire his continuous questioning of
what art can be but this piece feels out of place and disappointing.
Another point which I’d like to make
about every one of the photographs on the website and press regarding The Line; not one of the photographs are
taken in their current location. This makes it a little confusing when trying
to find them and is frankly a little baffling.
Someone must have put them there; you would have thought they would have
photographed them at the time?!
Rant over, for the next part of the
journey was the most fun. We took the
Emirates Air Line to the other side of the river to Greenwich. The Air Line for those who don’t know is a
cable car that links one side of the river with the other. You get amazing views of the Thames and The
O2 (which I still refer to as the Millennium Dome.) It was great value at only
£3.30 on my Oyster card. There’s also a nifty
little video about all that you can see from way up there.
While crossing on the cable car you’ll
be able to see the next artwork, again missing from the website and without an
accompanying sign this is Antony Gormley’s Quantum
Cloud. A wire sculpture which is,
according to Wikipedia, a collection of tetrahedral units. If you look at it
from the right angle you can see the ubiquitous figure of Gormley in the
middle.
We are now at the last section of The Line, this takes us on a walk around
the Thames and the O2. The next artwork
is Liberty Grip by Gary Hume. This is a sculpture made of patinated and
painted bronze, based on the arm of a mannequin, the type that model clothes in
shops but it has been abstracted. This
is one of my favourite pieces of the walk, the most interesting thing about
this is the use of the pink, an artificially bright colour in contrast to the
dull bronze. Hume has taken something which is quite common and alludes to the
human form but represented it as a synthetic and man-made creation on the scale
of a celebratory piece of art.
At first sight the next piece seems to
be an old boat/ship left on the side of the river. At closer inspection A Slice of Reality by Richard Wilson is only a part of a ship
expertly sliced all the way through on both sides it makes you wonder how such
a large undertaking was completed with such precision.
The next sculpture is the Here by Thomson & Craighead, a sign post
which is meant to show the distance all the way around the world and back to the
same point. There does appear to be something at this point but I did not see
this signpost. Maybe we missed it and walked straight past it as it similar to
a normal road sign or maybe it was removed?
There are mysteries in this art trail
that maybe were not planned for – it doesn’t seem like anyone has walked the
whole thing before and certainly not much information is available.
And this takes us to the end of The Line. A seemingly ill thought out
and badly planned, hard to follow tour of modern art. This actually seems quite
fitting as modern art can sometimes be as infuriating as this walk and arty
types are not known for their logistical qualities. It seems that the main
reason that this is not a cohesive walk along a continuous line along the
canals or thorough parks is that it follows the Meridian Line, plus London is
not known for having enough walkways that are not bisected by building sites,
private land or large roads.
Having said that it was a decent way to
spend a few hours, a good excuse for some exercise on a mild autumnal day and
the chance to see some art and parts of London I don’t usually explore. And as they add more sculptures along the way
I shall probably pop along and have a look.
For more information see:
I found this after the walk – it appears
we missed another artwork from this map however this is not mentioned on the
official website (James Balmforth - Inhibition
Point: Possibly may have been removed?)
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