Surreal estate – the art of Alex Chinneck
From a house which melts before the eyes of thousands of commuters, to a neoclassical portico which hovers precariously over London’s Covent Garden, the magical, ambitious work of Alex Chinneck suspends belief, forcing viewers to question the urban environment. Shumi Bose catches up with the young artist in a rare moment of repose, before he pulls his next reality-bending trick...
Words: Shumi Bose
Photography: Chris Tubbs
It's November when I visit Alex Chinneck at his largely hand-built home and studio in Hackney. He is about to take his first holiday in years. He and his young family deserve a few days away -- in his own words, the past two years have been a 'whirlwind of ambition... which is the enemy of good health'. The past month alone has seen the final orchestration of several particularly ambitious feats: the levitation of a stone-pillared portico in Covent Garden, the melting of a full-size cottage in Southwark, and the arrival of Chinneck's baby daughter all within the space of a couple of weeks. Apparently, making magic is not easy.
Portrait of the artist as a young man: Alex Chinneck studied as a painter before veering into three and four dimensions.
His recent work in London's Covent Garden, entitled Take my Lightning but Don't Steal my Thunder (2014) performs a super-sized version of the same levitation trick that the Garden's street-artists pull off every day. Using a metal armature, the 'performer' hovers above the ground. With Chinneck, a whole neoclassical portico, complete with granite pediment, architrave and Portland stone pillars, appears to have been ripped from its colonnaded base, yet somehow still floats several metres above the ground.
Painstaking production of lifelike replica bricks involved calculating the melting time of various formulas as well as the finish
On my visit, the gap mirrors the jaw-drop that the piece exerts on passers-by. The fabricated portico has taken some eight months, more than 100 architects, designers and technicians and 500 hours of digital carving to reach this level of verisimilitude with the existing built fabric of Covent Garden market. Richard Nuttall's team of set-builders who serve the neighbouring Royal Opera House was also drafted in. Many layers of plaster, paint and toil, as well as electrostatically flocked 'moss', were painstakingly applied over expanded polystyrene, helping the fake addition to blend in, while a four-tonne counterweight, cleverly disguised as a market stall, held the work in balance.
Painstaking production of lifelike replica bricks involved calculating the melting time of various formulas as well as the finish
Across town in Southwark, an immaculately produced full-scale Georgian cottage has been melting over a period of weeks, its helpless dissolution witnessed day after day by regular commuters. The piece, entitled A Pound of Flesh for 50p, which riffs on the history of a candle factory in the area, is just as Instagram-friendly as the portico, but viewing a process unfolding over time and watching the work's slow demise produces a different effect. Each of the sculpture's 8,000 wax bricks was painstakingly textured and coloured to look just like the real thing.
Painstaking production of lifelike replica bricks involved calculating the melting time of various formulas as well as the finish
A team manually heated and melted the structure from within to allow some control over the 'melt', which took 30 days. 'Covent Garden needed to be an impulse artwork, a strong photographic image that captured the attention of fleeting tourists looking to be entertained,' says Chinneck, whereas 'The Melting House on Southwark Street is the same audience of commuters day in and day out... you can tell a story over time, to the same audience.' The material effect is bizarre and unpredictable -- the bricks seem to fester in a manner almost organic, sprouting melted tendrils, drips and warped extrusions.
Painstaking production of lifelike replica bricks involved calculating the melting time of various formulas as well as the finish.
Chinneck studied painting at Chelsea College of Art and Design. As a student his work became increasingly sculptural while 'creating things which seemed beyond the possible', which involved many conversations with engineers and manufacturers. Chinneck found himself slipping away from art school to frequent various clubs and classes at the nearby Imperial College, finding collaborators and advisers.
