Toast and birds...

So Thursday and Friday both saw the now much anticipated changing of the board as it has come to be known by the locals of Pimlico, with some people traveling from as far as Victoria to witness the grand sight!
Ok so that's not entirely true, people do stand and watch while the prints go up though but usually in pairs (discounting the group of fruit wielding youths mind as here were four of them). An old gent sidled up to the board whilst i put up Thursdays t'oast themed board and said "I've been thinking the very same thing, but you've really nailed it. Wonderful!". I'm not entirely sure what he meant, whether he had been thinking "people should eat toast...everyday!" or something akin to that i will never know as i merely said thanks and he trundled off on his bike chortling to himself. Nice chap. Here's the print in question:




It came about from me wanting to make a print that was an advert but advertised nothing by way of a brand or product, like how we used to get ads for eggs and milk. It could have been anything i guess but then i found an old Hovis ad which featured the insanity of a child who appeared to be emerging from some toast and that, as they say, was that. That and i really like toast. It's really, really good.

Friday's print then. I have a stock pile of images. They are in a series of boxes and folders, in no particular order or category. They are things i have found, been given, pulled out of magazines etc. Occasionally i will leaf through them and suddenly something jumps out and it finds it s way into a piece of work. I work in a similar way with the objects that end up in my work. I seem to have to have them for a while, to allow them to just be, before i consider they could become something else, to play a part in my making.
Anyway that is what happened with The Family Tree of Birds print. It is taken from a Pelican book on Psychology that i used for one of my Hole In One drawings which involve drawing the same circle repeated until it eats through the surface/object it is being drawn on. Before i made the drawing however i flicked through the book and pulled out maybe three pages that stood out. This was one of them. I liked how it seemed to say almost nothing and was also rather striking to look at. I found it the other day and decided it should be given new life on MFB. I wanted to inject some colour so i set about trying to find links between the birds that were more abstract then species or breed (band names or nouns for instance) and yet not immediately obvious to the viewer, and then colour coding them but without the key. I like the idea of allowing for play to an extent. Here's the result:

Better pictures...

So below is the better pictures of yesterday. I will post up the pictures of todays and tomorrows prints together. The weather today was so miserable when i pasted the print up that the photos taken just made me feel depressed so tomorrow it shall be. Today's theme as a taster was...Toast...and tomorrows is...The Bird Family. "The intrigue!" i hear you cry:

Towards a New Atlas - part 1...

In keeping with MFB (i though I'd try out this abbreviation for My First Billboard as it takes too long to write. Maybe its a bit to crap though. Well I'll try it out for this post and see how it goes. no harm in that) tradition i was unable to take any decent pictures today of the billboard due to camera failure, or more to the point failure on my part to charge the battery. I did however take a couple of quick snaps on my phones camera. Technology truly is a wonderful thing. I'll take some better shots tomorrow but for now here is todays print Towards A New Atlas (Incomplete):




Now as promised i will share a few ideas and theories that reared their heads whilst reading Contemporary Art: From Studio To Situation. The particular projects within this book that seemed to resonate with the way i work and how this project is beginning to work were Bohn and Saffer's Mobile Porch project , Better Life Corporation's (Mejar Vida Corp) community based interventions and Adam Dant's free publication Donald Parsnips. These all seemed to hold similar core values at their hearts in that they are all concerned with direct contact with the public and not having the work mediated by a gallery or museum setting. Mobile Porch provided a station that was adaptable for a variety of uses morphing from stage to office to community meeting room, 'a flexible platform for people...to articulate or express or publish ideas'1. , Whilst Better Life Corp. alter peoples lives through small tasks for little gain such as distributing free travel passes at rush hour, showing an interest in removing the commodity and the commercial from artwork. It is Dant's work however that seemed most in tune with MFB. For a time Dant took it upon himself to distribute a daily free publication featuring an alter-ego of sorts called Donald Parsnip. Through free distribution on the streets of London on a daily basis between 1995-1999, Dant allowed himself to be 'responsible for the mediation of my own artwork'2. Ultimately i feel it is this that MFB grants me as an artist. It is a space i curate and mediate on my own terms also on a daily basis. I have begun to realise that it is a sort of giant sketch pad. I don't have to worry about works being finished, conceptually or actually as the board acts as a way for me to get the ideas out there without being precious about such things. If a print doesn't work it doesn't matter as it is likely to be gone the next day.

Anyway, a new print will be around again soon. I'm toying with the idea of collaborating for a day with someone so let me know if you're interested. I may even rent out the space to someone for a day if there's interest there...

1. Kathrin Bohm, Public Works, taken from Contemporary Art:from Studio to Situation, edited by Claire Doherty, Black Dog Publishing, London, England, 2004
2. Adam Dant, Donald Parsnips Daily Journal, taken from Contemporary Art:from Studio to Situation, edited by Claire Doherty, Black Dog Publishing, London, England, 2004

Post-it...

The first partial print went up on the billboard today. It's a blown-up scan of an amazing drawing on a post-it note that i found by The Oval cricket ground in South London. I'm not sure waht it is or why it would need to be on a post-it. i looks like a chap in a sweatband bleeding from his eyes to me. please feel free to leave your thoughts on this visceral masterpiece. Here's the original in all its poorly photographed glory:




And here's its billboard, oversized offspring:




A new one will arrive tomorrow and with it a new post. I found some insightful writings in the excellent book Contemporary Art: From Studio to Situation which i will try and find some relevant quotes for tomorrow. Frankly I'm too tired to right now and it feels like the energy needed could cause me to perish...

Two for one...

So here are the belated photos from last week captured in thursday glorious morning sun. 'Superfreakin' indeed. It was originally going to feature the caption 'Dear God, Don't Look at Us!' but in the end it went up textless. I was also going to transform it today into a quick homage to Baldessari but alas i was lacking in the necessary paint. Think this may come up again though.





And on to todays print 'Lets Speak English'...






This was a true and unadulterated nightmare to paste up. It was firstly windy up there, secondly i just couldn't get the text to line up and thirdly some local youths decided to taunt me, try and steal my ladder and then throw fruit at me. I kid you not! BUT i soldiered on and got it up but that is the reason why this ones a tad on the wrinkly side. Still that should mostly 'fall out' as it drys (i apply a similar principle to all creased clothes i wear). The fruit wielding children however will continue to roam the streets until such a day when they are plucked from this earth and arrive promptly in hell...

The text itself is from a Linguaphone book on speaking English i found in a charity shop in Pimlico. I am drawn to how all the text in it ends up sounding like the rantings of a Daily Mail reader whose mind has finally vacated leaving paranoid babblings and very little else.

Print two went up as intended today lovingly titled 'Superfreakin'. I'm afraid i forgot a camera though so no pictures of it as yet. some will be taken before it get s pasted over/altered which will probably be Monday. Alternatively you could just go and look at it...

A paste of time

The first print designed for My First Billboard went up today, in driving rain no less. Hopefully it will still be up there tomorrow morning but if this hellish weather has washed it away never fear we shall proceed!

There's some images of the print below (as well as a digital version earlier in this blog). Its comprised of digitally manipulated and layered elements from Topolino comics, Italy's Mickey Mouse. I have to say i think the name Topolino is infinitely better. The images themselves hopefully maintain enough of the familiar to be read whilst alluding to something else. They begin to spit forward absurd and impossible architecture, strange cloud formations and slabs of intersecting colour. As with many of the current print series I'm working on they look at the idea of asking viewers to consider how they look at and read images and how this is then skewed and altered when what we may normally focus on is removed or obstructed:




Print two has also been printed and i may try and get it up on the board tomorrow before a three or four day hiatus. Here's a sneaky peek at it. As always, pictures will be posted once completed:



I have also been posting about this on a couple of other places, my myspace blog and the forum on gigposter.com particularly and there have been some interesting responses. Here's a few comments from the gigposters forum that seemed particularly relevant or struck a cord with me somehow:

matthewthirteen: That is the most punk concept I've ever seen. Reclaiming public space legally.

Phoondaddy: B-DROID said he was going to tag your billboard this week. LOAD THE MUSKETS!!!!!!!

Both of these seemed to carry some resonance because of the idea of this being a project about display and how we use public space for art.
It does frequently feel that there is little way to publicly show work in this country that doesn't involve either large grants or breaking the law. Chelsea itself has just had its parade ground refurbished in order to house large scale commissions. This is obviously an interesting and exciting idea, depending on what they commission, but how and where do we show on a more grassroots level? I suppose i feel that the billboard offers me this opportunity for a few weeks and allows others to both see and comment on what i am doing. I also like this idea of the project being a 'punk concept'. As a man with a love of punk and its ethos for many years (i even played in a punk band or sorts called, rather sadly, Orifis. Oh dear...) the idea that the billboard somehow reflects this DIY way of operating (both in terms of the board itself as an alternative space, a small jeering alternative to Tate as one person suggested, and in terms of the way the work is cheaply printed, is disposable, temporary, a giant zine revealed page by page), really appeals. The second comment quoted is also interesting. No not the muskets part, though i do like a musket, more the concept of how this board will interact with or be interacted with by the public itself. I am not asking for it to be tagged etc, I'm merely musing over what could happen is all...

A question was also asked about quantifying what exactly would happen in terms of the pasting over of images. Heres the succinct response that i think worked well:

In terms of pasting over stuff, I will put up a giant print of mine on most days over the next couple of weeks so the one before gets pasted over, and then the next one etc. On the 22nd/23rd it will be a noticeboard for all so i will cram up loads of prints salon style. If i have a huge amount i will do a couple of days. I want people to advertise selling their couches through to some empty rants etc. Like a cross between speakers corner and the free classified ads...

I'm rather pleased with that last line so on that note i will call it a day.

As She Lives and Breathes...

Here she is in all her majesty, My First Billboard:


tomorrow will see the first day of pasting so posts will appear as and when new wprk goes up. Here's some info/a call for submission that is out floating in the ether for all who are interested:

My First Billboard
Chelsea College of Art & Design
Atterbury Street
London, SW1

My First Billboard is an alternative exhibition space of sorts devised, constructed and run by the artist Luke Drozd. Situated in the courtyard of Chelsea College of Art and Design, London, My First Billboard sits opposite Tate Britain wooing the public with its visual delights...

The premise is simple; over the rest of July into August a series of works will be pasted onto the board, with the previous content being destroyed, covered, deleted by the new fresh work that resides in its place. This may be anything: pointless posters, empty rhetoric, heartfelt wishes…we shall see. Progress of the board can be followed at:

www.myfirstbillboard.blogspot.com

Call for submissions

For one day only My First Billboard will become a community noticeboard /free advertising space for all. This will take place on 23rd July 2008. All you need to do to take advantage of this opportunity is send in your advert, message, notice, whatever you wish to display and it will duly be pasted onto the board. Work can be any size or scale, colour or black and white, so long as it can be pasted up.

All work MUST be received by 22nd July 2008 in order to guarantee a place on the board.

The address for delivery is:

My First Billboard
C/o Babak Ghazi
Chelsea College of Art & Design
16 John Islip Street,
London
SW1P 4JU

For more info please contact lukedrozd@hotmail.com

Construction cont...

Yesterday heady things were afoot in the world of My First Billboard. After a longer period than expected (and in some pretty miserable weather)we now had a secure and rather beautiful frame in place. Take a look for yourself:



And on to today. With the weather (mostly) on our side the main board itself was ready to attach to its moorings. A huge thanks to John for helping out on this whole project by the way...

Delays and print no.1

Right here's a quick progress update. Due to unforeseen circumstances and the board simply taking longer than was expected to make (within health and safety guidelines particularly) the billboard is not yet up. It SHOULD however be up by this Wednesday 9th July. Installation in situ begins tomorrow and the first print is printed (a digital image of which can be seen below). Will post images of installation as it happens...