Hello Friends, 2007
Sue Ball has nominated Bryan and Laura Davies's sculpture 'Hello Friends' in Bridgewater Place, Leeds and considers their work within a discursive review of the private development sector as commissioners of contemporary artistic and public works.
The Return of the Narrative
Taking the view as a passerby to Bridgewater Place, Leeds' tallest building, you can gain a moment of reflection by catching sight of Bryan and Laura Davis' sculpture, 'Hello Friends' in its atrium.
As the nights draws in, it appears as a lonely blinking monolith, communicating to all and nobody in particular but quite conscious in its attempts.
Set within the atrium, the 17.5 m high column provides an eye line into the passive heart of Bridgewater Place. In time, the atrium space will also house floor level eateries and cafes, but currently the stacked red fibreglass column provides a dynamic focus through which the space itself can find its form.
'Hello Friends' signals a return to narrative fictions within public art practice. Although taking as a starting point Brancusi's Endless Column, it completely subverts the main tenant of Modernism, the one of purity of form as a consequence of the elimination of literary narrative.
The clearest historical president is Trajan's Column, which is an example of a historical model that also carried an upwardly mobile narrative, through and around a columular form, within a grand public space. This earlier example celebrated Roman victory in battle and interrogated the public space it stood in, by reminding its viewers of how Rome had achieved its pre-eminence.
Brancusi's sculpture was also in commemoration of those who fell during war, but without the individualized narrative and by standing the column in a space devoted to a public park, he opens the content out to spiritual and metaphoric interpretations unfixed by particularity.
The need for a narrative is a response to working within the grand spaces of Bridgewater Place's atrium. This column stands within a futuristic environment reminiscent of that imagined by Fritz Lang for Metropolis and this 'science fiction' of a space needs a narrative in order for the passing people to engage with a space that could dominate through scale alone.
Brian and Laura's evolutionary narrative is suffused with science fiction's quasi-religious rhetoric and pictures the rise of humankind and the celebration of engineering conquests. Its story finishes with an awareness of humankinds own hubris, which parallels that earlier depiction of the conquests of Trajan and his later replacement with Saint Peter.
Bryan and Laura Davies have developed a critical practice through their recent projects, notably their work in Grizedale, through an exploration of the values and assumptions of the building. This approach is less about modernist sculpture and is more to do with developing a public dialogue. Their work comes from narrative practice, social sculpture and contemporary approaches that are post-modernist.
Bryan and Laura's practice attempts to bring together, on the one hand, the need for formal engagement with contemporary architecture, and on the other, the need for individuals using these spaces, to build narratives that enable them to engage with the spaces they move through.
The atrium is considered as public space but due to security, will operate primarily as a concourse for a private sector working audience. The life work narrative is one all of us have to engage with in our lives. The presence of a sculpture of this type allows for a moment of reflection to be triggered whenever people pass through the atrium space.
This complex sculpture is in, in effect, an intervention and response to the commissioning process, user profile and corporate nature of the space, and delivers a work that is self aware of its multi layered context. I find this a particularly successful response to a corporate art piece and it signals an interesting future for commissioning.
More information on Bryan and Laura Davies
Sue Ball 2008
