"We could have changed the way people look at this city. And they didn't let us." - here's a great account by Alexandra Topping from The Guardian of Toms Keeley & James' dogged campaign to transform industry into art.

" From the window of the Sheffield Supertram, Tom James watches despondently as the city's out-of-town shopping centre, Meadowhall, comes into view. Just beyond this mecca of consumerism, with its Disney-style dome and legions of parked cars, rises an altogether different landmark. The Tinsley cooling towers - bleak, elegant, real - are often the first and last thing people see as they enter and leave the city. But soon, like Sheffield's industrial golden age, they will be consigned to history, demolished to make way for a new power station. James reflects: "Imagine, when the towers are gone, Meadowhall will be the only thing you'll be able to see from the tram and the M1. How depressing."

Over the last three years, the 1940s towers have become symbolic of the battle for the city's soul - between those determined to create a 21st-century gleaming metropolis and those intent on preserving and celebrating some of the city's industrial heritage.

At the heart of that battle are Tom James and Tom Keeley, self-proclaimed "post-industrial city lovers" in their mid-20s. For two and a half years, they have been campaigning to have the redundant 76 metre-high towers, which stand just 17 metres from the motorway, transformed into a space for public art. "The idea was to transform the cooling towers into something amazing," Keeley says. "Our Angel of the North - something that would really make people think about Sheffield differently". "

Read on...

Here's an interesting arrival in London and Newcastle (simultaneously) this week. Peripatetic (LA born) David Choe has a new show opening this Friday night at the Lazarides Galleries. Here's a sneak preview of the new work...



Picture courtesy David Choe and Lazarides Gallery
Copyright: David Choe 2008

The blue wrap came off. The Big 4 saw the light of day. A real buzz was released into the air around the Channel. Big Art, bold creativity.

The Minister for Culture Margaret Hodge unveiled the 40’ high figure four based on those much admired idents on Channel 4. On the approach to the Channel’s Richard Rogers designed headquarters in Horseferry Road (London SW1), the 4 stands three and a bit storeys high. The structure forms a figure four only from a particular angle, just like the on-screen idents masterminded by Brett Foraker. The concept of the TV graphics is that the four only comes together for a fleeting moment. So, strictly speaking, the Big 4 should be viewed walking by, no stopping.

The structure has been skinned by leading British photographer Nick Knight. He is the first of four artists to tackle the task over the coming year. His approach: skin the figure with images of people’s hearts – from the outside. White skin, black skin, brown skin, the patchwork that is modern Britain. Stand in the middle and you can hear the beating of a heart.

In three months it will be the turn of Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui, and then the marvellous Mark Titchner. The last skinner will be the winner of a competition run in conjunction with the Saatchi Gallery.

The Big 4 celebrates 25 years of Channel 4 Arts and the launch of the Big Art Project (for anyone who's just landed here: it's an innovative, bold cross-platform initiative involving a 4 part documentary series from Carbon Media, the commissioning of 6 new works of public art across the UK – from Beckton to the Isle of Mull, and the first comprehensive map of public art in the UK in the form of the Big Art Mob – a mobile blogging initiative where people photograph public art they know and love and send it from their camera phone into a visually led blog and a Google Map mash-up, the Big Art Map).

Today I had a meeting at the Public Monuments & Sculpture Association with its Chief Executive Jo Darke to make sure the Big Art Mob complements what the Courtauld Institute-based research project has been doing. We (Jo, me and sculptor Nick Pearson) had a fabulous chat in a tranquil corner of Somerset House animated with passion for public art. What I so love about this interactive commission is it’s so adaptable to partnership initiatives. From arts & disability groups to the Arts Council, from Kew Gardens to specific creations like Aluna, Big Art Mob is an easy, accessible way to record, explore, enjoy, engage with public art in all its forms.

The day before the unveiling Montreal-based Mexican-Canadian multimedia artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer revealed his idea for the Big Art piece in Cardigan on the Welsh coast to the local community. Home of the first Eisteddfod, hub of the oral tradition; point of departure for America in the 19th and early 20th centuries; Lozano-Hemmer has really got under the skin of the place and distilled in a work based on buoys floating just off the river bank, collecting and projecting back the voices of the local population and interested people beyond.

There were 2,800 job cuts being discussed at the BBC yesterday. That’s over three times the size of Channel 4. What the Channel lacks in bulk, it makes up for in size of ambition, degree of creativity and scale of idea. Sometimes it’s good to be the underdog. Between Saturday’s unbelievable England rugby match in Paris and yesterday’s unveiling of the Big 4, I’m totally c!h!a!r!g!e!d.

First there were the big squares of plywood, bordered with yellow and black tape. Then, yesterday afternoon, they arrived in their yellow helmets. Three foot long drill bits. The mysterious squares pulled up to reveal the concrete secrets below...

The squad of art-builders were preparing the way for the Big 4. Is it landing this weekend? A closely guarded secret. Even those in the know don't really know. Rumour has it Westminster Council don't want the work going on on the weekend - some major engineering going on on the premises with cranes and steel girders and 800 staff coming&going makes much more sense.

So will the Big 4 be there when we arrive on Monday? Watch this space and I'll watch that one for you...