Leon Vranken

Selected projects Table manners Soft shapes Common ground Partly cloudy Curved dialogue Bend, stretch, relax A salute to the wheel Fluid axis Great plans, random ideas Paper, Scissors, Stone Raised elevation Study of a vertical line Every end has a beginning Common pedestal Oak rumble Constructive carving The traveling riddle Entrance
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Constructive carving
South London Gallery, 2009
Constructive carving, 2009
wood, varnish, glue
various dimension

Beneath the recently installed floor of the SLG, lay the original wooden flooring, incorporating a High Victorian mar- quetry panel by Walter Crane, bearing the motto “The source of art lies in the life of a people.” Vranken cut a series of shapes out of the modern floor, thereby suggesting that Crane’s original work would be revealed. The removed wooden sections were then reused to construct a chair and a shelf. In the monumental setting of the SLG’s main gallery, these interventions appeared fragile and largely unconvincing. The cut-out holes and rickety furniture stood in sharp contrast to the utopian Victorian ideal of art as an instrument of social ordering articulated by Crane’s motto. At the same time, the modest, unheroic objects withdrew from that elevated programme: it was precisely in their provisional and vulnerable character that they retained a human scale.

Constructive carving, 2009
wood, varnish, glue
various dimension
detail