sculpture

Evil Portal /  by Mark Gubb

A huge holographic installation in a desert somewhere.

This is based on (essentially a recreation of) a scene from the film ‘Time Bandits’.

In one scene of the film, the Time Bandits find themselves in a desert and come across an invisible barrier they can’t pass through. They start arguing and one of them picks up a nearby skull from a deceased animal (maybe human, I need to check) and throws it at the person they’re arguing with.

The skull misses the person and smashes through the invisible barrier, shattering it like a massive piece of glass, and making a huge hole in it, which reveals The Fortress of Ultimate Darkness (a scary castle) behind.

This sculpture/installation would be a massive glass hologram in the desert, in the shape of a huge broken sheet of glass, with an image of a scary fortress/castle in it.

Nike Air Bathroom /  by Mark Gubb

This is a sculpture that consists of a pair of large Nike Air trainers nailed to the wall (the soles of the shoes flat on the wall, the shoe facing ‘up’ the wall, with the nail going through the toes).

The two trainers are positioned either side of a ceramic urinal divider, of the kind you find in men’s public bathrooms to divide the space between the urinals.

Positioned inside each trainer is a single urinal-cake (the perfumed cleaning blocks that are placed in urinals).

The sculpture should be positioned on the wall at urinal height.

Cultural Icon Fire /  by Mark Gubb

This could be a performance, an action, a video, a photograph, or all of them.

Using a flammable liquid or gel, a large pentagram (for example) is drawn on the floor, after dark. This is then set alight.

I have also imagined this as a potential series of ‘round iconography’ burns i.e. do the same with an anarchy symbol, C.N.D., a smiley etc.

A Repurposed Statue /  by Mark Gubb

The world is in a constant state of upheaval and in recent years we’ve seen various uprisings and societal collapses. What often goes along with that is the destruction of public statues and monuments representative of a formerly oppressive regime.

Statues tend to be heavy things, so when they’re not being dragged into Bristol docks, they’re often dismantled using cranes.

I’ve often been struck by the powerful images of statues of dictators being removed from their plinths, hoisted high in the air, by a chain round their neck. There’s something very brutal and precarious about this image - like a metaphorical lynching of the oppressor.

For this work I propose a temporary (could be permanent) public sculpture that consists of a removed-statue, hanging by a chain round its neck, dangling from a crane.

A Repeatable Action-Work /  by Mark Gubb

Every artist needs a simple action-work that they can do anywhere, anytime (for example, on arrival somewhere), which transforms a fairly modest moment into a moment of creativity, capturing something of that moment and lending it significance (even if it doesn’t really have any).

Something like:

Balling/screwing-up a blank piece of A4 paper, then photographing it in-situ.

Keeping the disposable cup from the first cup of coffee you drink in a new destination.

Sending a postcard to your dead Grandmother’s last address.

In some ways, it doesn’t really matter what the action is, it’s just a physical representation of a moment. The success of a work like this exists in the repetition. One balled-up and photographed piece of A4 is photograph of a piece of trash, whereas 100 photographs of balled-up pieces of A4 in different locations becomes a marker of time.