Van Gogh's Living Wall - The Movie!

In May I posted a short piece on the Van Gogh Living Wall outside the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. Digging around the net I have found this short film about the creation of the wall.

It was produced by the sponsor of the wall GE. Apparently it took 500 hours of work to precisely position each of the 8,000 plants. The computer generated template that was used being based on Van Gogh's Wheatfield, with Cypresses. This 2 minute corporate film does however have some interesting behind the scenes shots of the wall being assembled and then erected on site.


If you have taken your own photos of the wall you can tag them #GElivingwall and add them to an online mosaic of images being created on GE's Facebook page www.facebook.com/ecomagination .

I must say the wall looks better each time I pass it, as the plants mature and their colours become ever more distinctive.  I hope it sets a trend.

Horse's Head Found in Mount Street Gardens

Yesterday morning this new sculpture was delivered to Mount Street Gardens in Mayfair.

It is Fire by Nic Fiddian-Green, the sculptor who also brought us Marwari - Horse at Water at Marble Arch. More on this artist, who has been producing monumental horse's heads for over 25 years, from his website here.

Another of his works is currently outside the Sladmore Gallery in Bruton Place where he has an exhibition running until the 26th August. Details from the gallery here.

The Mount Street Gardens head is the latest piece in Westminster City Council's excellent City of Sculpture initiative.

The programme has so far delivered the temporary public display of major sculptures such as Jelly Baby Family, by Mauro Perruchetti, Vroom Vroom and Force of Nature II by Lorenzo Quinn and Core Femme by Jill Berelowitz as well as the Bruce Denny group in Soho Square.

All these, and many more are planned, have been installed at zero cost to the council. All the costs associated with installing and insuring each work have been met by the participating galleries and patrons.

See the City of Sculpture label below for links to related posts.

The Greenest Pub in London?

I posted about the National Gallery's new Van Gogh living wall the other day. That is enormously clever and a great temporary feature for Trafalgar Square. My favourite living wall in London is this one though:

Really well established now,  the walls of The Driver Public House, at the corner of Killick Street and Wharfdale Road in Islington, heave beneath foliage and flowers.

The work is the brainchild of the owner Billy Reilly who has also opened a roof-top terrace there, ideal for us smokers. This pub is well worth a look if you don't know it already. More details from their site here.

Van Gogh's Living Wall in Trafalgar Square

Over 8,000 plants have been planted on a hoarding outside the National Gallery recreating Van Gogh’s Wheatfield with Cyprusses as a living wall.

You can see the original painting inside the National Gallery and the living version will be there until October.

The project is a collaboration between GE and the National Gallery, more details here.

UPDATE: August 2nd 2011 I have found a little film, made by GE, showing the wall being created. Follow this link to the new post. 

A City Garden all to Myself

The Walbrook Gardens in the City of London were unveiled last September, formerly the Saint Swithun's Church Garden. A lot of people still have to find them. I was there at lunchtime today and they were strangely deserted.

It felt almost unnerving to be eating a sandwich, completely alone, in such a beautiful space, within yards of the frenetic pace of the City.

The gardens and the staute are memorials to Owain Glyndwr the early 15th Century Welsh ruler and national hero and to his family. Glyndwr was the last native Welshman to hold the title "Prince of Wales".

Saint Swithun's churchyard became the final resting place of his youngest daughter Catrin and her two daughters when they died in 1413 after  four years imprisonment in the Tower of London;

The statue has this inscription :

Catrin Glyndwr

GODRE TWR - ADRE NID AETH 

At the tower end, far away from home

ARAI EI RHYW YW HIRAETH 

longing is a woman's song

alaw dawel yr alltud 

An exile's silent song

Menna Elfyn

The artists are Nick Stradlyn John, Richard Renshaw and Bryn Chegwidden

Erected by Public subscription - IA Monnington Taylor, Sir Julian Hodge and Hanson plc

Too Many Laws Too Few Examples

Carved into the terracotta facade of a building on the corner of Davies Street and Mount Row in Mayfair, are these three concrete poems.

Les Mots Juste Sont Entendus Par Toutes Les Consciences

Too Many Laws Too Few Examples

Where Man Obeys Without Being Presumed Good There Is Neither Liberty Nor A Native Land

They are the work of the remarkable Ian Hamilton Finlay, CBE (not Findlay OBE as the small, misleading plaque states!). The words come from the French Revolutionary and poet Louis de Saint-Just.

Ian Hamilton Finlay died in 2006, just a couple of years after he completed this work. He is probably best remembered for his garden, Little Sparta, near Edinburgh, where his passions for sculpture, poetry and gardening are expressed on a grand scale. You can read more about him and Little Sparta here.

The building itself , 21 Davies Street, is by Kohn Pedersen Fox 2004.