Alex Chinneck’s Public Infrastructure and Tools Twist to Bizarrely Impractical Proportions

a man in a blue corduroy outfit walks by a bright red telephone boot with an exaggerated twist at the center

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Art

#Alex Chinneck
#humor
#installation
#public art
#sculpture

July 26, 2024

Grace Ebert

All images © Alex Chinneck, shared with permission

Alex Chinneck has the world tied in knots as he distorts everyday tools and infrastructure. Twisting and twining telephone booths, hammers, and lamp posts, the British artist (previously) warps common objects to exaggerated proportions, rendering each almost entirely unusable. Mop handles form perfect bows, a brush constricts so tightly around a canister that blue paint spills out, and a bright red fire extinguisher appears choked for air. Chinneck’s interventions are boldly bizarre and speak to the extraordinary potential of humble objects.

This summer, the artist will install the knotted lamp posts below as part of a permanent work in Bristol, along with a spectacular boat undertaking a gravity-defying loop-the-loop for the Sheffield & Tinsley Canal. Keep an eye on those projects and find his recent kinetic sculptures for Hérmes’s Hong Kong store on Instagram.

a hammer with a knot at the center of the handle

a metal paint can with a brush tied tight around the center and blue paint squirting from the bottom and top

a large lamp post that appears to embrace a smaller lamp post in a warehouse

two lamp posts tie together into a bow in a warehouse

a bright red fire extinguisher with a tightly twisted knot at the center

two mops in buckets in a laundromat with their wooden handles tied in a bow

#Alex Chinneck
#humor
#installation
#public art
#sculpture

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