A house in the seaside town of Margate, Kent looks like a disaster caused by a cut-rate architect. The fool didn’t apply the proper facade fixative (that’s a thing, right?) and now the front of the four-story building is sliding off into the front yard, exposing an attic which could only look more disturbing if it had an old woman in a filthy wedding gown living in it.
The Daily Mail reported in October that the house, which sat empty for 11 years, is actually a surreal public art project by 28-year-old Alex Chinneck of London. Titled From the Knees of My Nose to the Belly of My Toes, the £100,000 installation coincided with the opening of Turner Contemporary in Margate, a world-class but community oriented kunsthall.
Chinneck said that piece of synchronicity was by design. Many people, he noted, are too intimidated to set foot inside an art gallery, but that barrier isn’t present when artwork is in a public setting. As we can see from the Daily Mail‘s photographs, residents and visitors to Margate have been flocking to the supremely weird installation. The piece will remain for about one year.
Buildings that blaspheme basic concepts of architecture have popped up before in Chinneck’s work. Miner on the Moon is two upside-down buildings in London and Self-Employed is a circular chimney which belches smoke back in on itself.
Bill Rodgers is a Contributing Editor to CFile.
Above image: Alex Chinneck pictured with From the Knees of My Nose to the Belly of My Toes, 2013. Photograph courtesy of the Daily Mail.
Alex Chinneck, From the Knees of My Nose to the Belly of My Toes, 2013.
The artist states that public art is important because it’s accessible to people from different backgrounds who may feel out-of-place in a typical gallery.
The design for Chinneck’s project should make a conventional architect’s palms get all clammy. Above photography courtesy of the Daily Mail.
Alex Chinneck, Miner on the Moon. Photograph courtesy of the artist.
Alex Chinneck, Self-Employed. Photograph courtesy of the artist.
Read the original article in the Daily Mail
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