Previous AA2A Artist

Andy Parsons

Year:
2009-10
Project summary:

I have produced an edition of the sculptures pictured opposite, which take as their starting point the Staffordshire figures mass produced in the 19th Century. The technicians helped enormously in the production of the works, which was far more complex than I had anticipated.

My original idea was to make the sculptures and then show them, with the commercial gallery that represents me in Japan and maybe elsewhere. About halfway through the project I decided to to change the role of the objects by giving a bunch of them to the University Library, so that they could be loaned out like books.

The implications of this change in approach - the effective merging of a practice based on the production of traditional art objects with something akin to a public art practice - are something I want to mull over for a while. Ditto the meaning and implications of the sculptures themselves; I realised after they were finished that the objects have potential meanings to do with masculinity, class and popular culture that are very complex indeed.

'Hoodies'
Sculpture