Peter Newman
08 Jul - 14 Sep 2009
PETER NEWMAN
"Skystation"
Wednesday 8 July 2009 - Monday 14 September 2009
Skystation’ is an exhibition of works by Peter Newman (b. London, 1969) that explores both our relationship with the sky and with Modernism’s architectural legacy.
Situated outside the entrance to the Hayward Gallery, Skystation (2005-9) is a spaceship-like sculpture that also acts as a piece of public seating. Based on Le Corbusier’s classic LC4 chaise longue, the work invites the viewer to recline, turn their eyes to the heavens and towards tomorrow. In Polychrome Elevations (2009), external staircases around the Hayward Gallery and Queen Elizabeth Hall have been painted red, blue and yellow – primary colours that recall both Piet Mondrian’s geometric paintings and Le Corbusier’s modernist concrete structures. After nightfall, Newman’s video Free at Last (1997) can be seen on the east facade of Royal Festival Hall. In this work, a skydiver calmly practices yoga moves as he freefalls through the blue sky. The four photographs shown in the Hayward Gallery foyer and Concrete, the Hayward’s cafe/bar, are from Newman’s ongoing series Metropoly, and were taken with a fish eye lens while lying in the shadow of major buildings in London, Tokyo, San Francisco, and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Like Skystation, these images meditate on the way in which metropolitan architecture frames and shapes the sky above.
"Skystation"
Wednesday 8 July 2009 - Monday 14 September 2009
Skystation’ is an exhibition of works by Peter Newman (b. London, 1969) that explores both our relationship with the sky and with Modernism’s architectural legacy.
Situated outside the entrance to the Hayward Gallery, Skystation (2005-9) is a spaceship-like sculpture that also acts as a piece of public seating. Based on Le Corbusier’s classic LC4 chaise longue, the work invites the viewer to recline, turn their eyes to the heavens and towards tomorrow. In Polychrome Elevations (2009), external staircases around the Hayward Gallery and Queen Elizabeth Hall have been painted red, blue and yellow – primary colours that recall both Piet Mondrian’s geometric paintings and Le Corbusier’s modernist concrete structures. After nightfall, Newman’s video Free at Last (1997) can be seen on the east facade of Royal Festival Hall. In this work, a skydiver calmly practices yoga moves as he freefalls through the blue sky. The four photographs shown in the Hayward Gallery foyer and Concrete, the Hayward’s cafe/bar, are from Newman’s ongoing series Metropoly, and were taken with a fish eye lens while lying in the shadow of major buildings in London, Tokyo, San Francisco, and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Like Skystation, these images meditate on the way in which metropolitan architecture frames and shapes the sky above.