You know Simon Patterson, I go on about him toooften, he's an artist, he did that "Great Bear" poster, the one where he replaced all the stations on the tube map with famous people's names, back when that was still an original thing to do, made him famous, has done lots of other stuff, the boy I went to school with, we had the same art teacher, you know, that Simon Patterson
and about 40 of us turned up to hear him speak.
There's a theatre hidden underneath the London Transport Museum, you wouldn't know, through a glass gate opposite the entrance, down some stairs, big open space at the bottom, ring of chairs in it, that's where the first people sat down, more people joined them and grabbed the best seats, turned out it was only the foyer, the real theatre's through some big doors, bit embarrassing that.
Simon was introduced by Oliver Green, the Museum's head curator, who said some intelligent effusive things and then dashed off to another engagement. And then the talk proper, in which Simon discussed some of his many and varied works.
It's strange innit, someone you went to school with, standing up in front of you talking about their life, and all that they've done, and they've clearly been very successful, and they're artistically "recognised", projects in so many countries, and they speak about it all eloquently, and you think "I could have done that", except you couldn't, and good luck to him.
Of course the piece that most people were interested in was The Great Bear, and Simon described its evolution.
The Great Bear was one of those "wouldn't it be a good idea..." ideas, a spark of inspiration, conceived and created in a squat off Tottenham Court Road. Took decision to seek official permission from London Transport, not just rip off their copyright, so took ages to get agreement, turned out to be well worth it, also meant that the fake map was put together by LT's proper lithographers using cutting edge early 90s computer technology, so the finished poster had credibility. The names on each line had a theme, for example footballers on the Jubilee, or Chinese dissidents on the DLR (out east), or saints in alphabetical order on the Piccadilly. As for the interchange stations, there was no deliberate attempt to find a clever name which matched all the lines meeting there, although Gary Lineker is both a footballer and a saint, that was intentional. The map may be static but it continues to evolve, people's perceptions change, for example if famous comedians die, or when Pluto was declassified as a planet. The Great Bear was first exhibited at the Hayward Gallery, nearly didn't make it into the show, the rest is history.
Simon then skipped through many of his other artistic projects, especially those with a transport bent, although the laptop and projector technology didn't always work smoothly.
"Is the there any way to focus this one?" "Can you sort the focus out?" "Have you tried the auto focus?" "Sorry about the focus everyone"
(it's always the same isn't it, you spend ages putting together a presentation, proper multimedia and everything, sweated buckets over it, then the technology let's you down, just fails, or goes fuzzy or malfunctions or something, totally outside your control, have to make the best of a bad thing, it's so annoying)
"Can you turn the slideshow off so I can show a DVD" "I don't want to show both simultaneously, it looks awful" "I said turn off the slides, not the DVD" "Mr Projectionist, hello?"
A lot of Simon's work is graphically based, or three dimensional, or quite possibly both, he's really very hard to pigeonhole.
One final look at a project he's been asked to do in France, commemorating Wilfred Owen's last resting place, and then off.
Bit of a rush at the end, missed out a few planned slides, overran by nearly half an hour, nobody minded, fascinating stuff, should have paid more attention in art lessons.
Further events to follow at the LT Museum next year if you're interested.
The Great Bear was one of those "wouldn't it be a good idea..." ideas, a spark of inspiration, conceived and created in a squat off Tottenham Court Road. Took decision to seek official permission from London Transport, not just rip off their copyright, so took ages to get agreement, turned out to be well worth it, also meant that the fake map was put together by LT's proper lithographers using cutting edge early 90s computer technology, so the finished poster had credibility. The names on each line had a theme, for example footballers on the Jubilee, or Chinese dissidents on the DLR (out east), or saints in alphabetical order on the Piccadilly. As for the interchange stations, there was no deliberate attempt to find a clever name which matched all the lines meeting there, although Gary Lineker is both a footballer and a saint, that was intentional. The map may be static but it continues to evolve, people's perceptions change, for example if famous comedians die, or when Pluto was declassified as a planet. The Great Bear was first exhibited at the Hayward Gallery, nearly didn't make it into the show, the rest is history.
"Is the there any way to focus this one?" "Can you sort the focus out?" "Have you tried the auto focus?" "Sorry about the focus everyone"A lot of Simon's work is graphically based, or three dimensional, or quite possibly both, he's really very hard to pigeonhole.(it's always the same isn't it, you spend ages putting together a presentation, proper multimedia and everything, sweated buckets over it, then the technology let's you down, just fails, or goes fuzzy or malfunctions or something, totally outside your control, have to make the best of a bad thing, it's so annoying)"Can you turn the slideshow off so I can show a DVD" "I don't want to show both simultaneously, it looks awful" "I said turn off the slides, not the DVD" "Mr Projectionist, hello?"One final look at a project he's been asked to do in France, commemorating Wilfred Owen's last resting place, and then off.A section of stadium seating based on typewriter keys, several tweaked periodic tables, a short film of spinning pocket watches (described as "horological porn"), a fabulous film based on in-flight safety demonstrations but with a magical sado-masochistic twist, McCarthyite closing credits, three yacht sails labelled with author's biographical details, annotated cablecars, exploding camouflage grenades, it's an inventive mind run wild.
Bit of a rush at the end, missed out a few planned slides, overran by nearly half an hour, nobody minded, fascinating stuff, should have paid more attention in art lessons.Further events to follow at the LT Museum next year if you're interested.
