CR Blog

News and views on visual communications from the writers of Creative Review

A Little Bit Of CR At C4

Patrick 21/05/08, 15:36

big4-el5.jpg

The latest version of Channel 4’s Big Four sculpture incorporates a little bit of Creative Review – some of our printing plates, to be exact, along with those of various other magazines and newspapers

big4-el1.jpg

Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui is the third artist to tackle The Big 4 installation - a giant-size version of the ‘4′ logo to life on the steps of the channel’s London headquarters.

“This work references the ubiquitous and ephemeral nature of news formats in current times,” says El Anatsui. “When about to discard old newspapers, I have noticed that most people begin to read the articles they come across. It is as if the speed in which they are flung at us is so great, and the need to process the information so urgent, that we wished for a little more time to digest. And these stolen moments begin to satisfy that longing.”

big4-el2.jpg

Trinity Mirror Plc and The Independent both donated plates from their papers to be used in the piece, as did CR’s printer, St Ives. Wallpaper* also features in the artwork.

The 50-foot-high metal ‘4′ was constructed to celebrate both the Channel’s 25th anniversary year. It mirrors the channel’s on-air identity, with metal bars forming the logo only when viewed from a particular angle. See our original story on it here

big4-el7.jpg

Comments(12 comments)

poor poor poor art

Posted by honest joe on 21/05/08, 6:36 pm

This looks nice.
Clear concept, nice execution. The more varied the plates the better I would imagine.
A good little project to have on the Channel 4 entrance. Nice building too.

Posted by Action Man on 22/05/08, 9:35 am

Joe, it’s not art. It’s branding, and a interesting example of an old logo rejuvinated to become a fresh new campaign and identity.

Posted by Ed Wright on 22/05/08, 12:18 pm

That’s right Ed, it is a very good example.

Posted by Action Man on 22/05/08, 2:31 pm

You mean to say the Channel 4 logo is part of a brand? I hadn’t noticed.

Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui is the third artist to tackle The Big 4 installation.

As I said, poor art well paid I presume.

It’s interesting to note how a so-called sculptor can collaborate so overtly commercially and still be called an artist. Don’t illustrators have the commercial-artist tag hung upon them? and isn’t it supposedly impossible for a designer to produce art?

His appalling post-rationalised drivel isn’t worth the discarded and re-read paper it’s printed on. But it looks nice despite that 95 / 100 design students would’ve done the same thing.

Posted by honest joe on 23/05/08, 12:17 pm

Shock! Horror! Artist does something for money!

I think it’s good that artists are sometimes asked to fulfill a ‘brief’, rather then stick to personal expression. Just as it’s good for designers to sometimes not have a brief and go off on one for bit. Don’t go hole-ing those pigeons.

Posted by Ed Wright on 23/05/08, 3:28 pm

Channel 4 are obviously getting the discussion they wanted in the art world…

Posted by Vicky Carlin on 23/05/08, 7:08 pm

Gee you know, it’s an artist-designer, I mean a desginer-artist, a collaborating designing artist…gee I really don’t know! :|

Doesn’t art and design cross over in any way? All design is, on a really tiny scale, even by the best designers, a little bit self-indulgent? Some artists must be creating art to please its audience when they visit the exhibition? In a nutshell-don’t they cross over, a wee bit? Or quite a bit?

It’s not an original idea-MKG is doing something similar with their gallery (albeit with a slightly different concept) for their new ‘look’, but it’s an acceptable sculpture. At least the message is coming across and at least there’s some form of coherency throughout Channel 4’s current branding and advertising schemes.

Posted by Lee-Tze Leong on 24/05/08, 12:05 am

Joe. Your naive.

Posted by Sony DVD Player on 26/05/08, 4:42 am

I certainly have no interest in perpetuating an art vs. design argument. “But designers have clients!” snore. “And Artists are indulgent!” snore. Aquinas is sleeping and Wilde is banged up. A revelation on aesthetics from a graphic designer is like listening to a taxi driver wittering philosophy.

In any case you can’t argue critically with graphic designers: they all believe in the divine sanctity of brands, and packaging and type-choices and other fat sacred cows marching on to oblivion.

Posted by honest joe on 26/05/08, 2:45 pm

Isn’t it just a case of ‘artist gets commission’??
I really don’t understand the problem - it’s a nice execution of the brief that echoes their idents (which have had nothing but universal praise since they first started running).
What’s Aquinas got to do with anything?

Posted by Dave on 27/05/08, 2:28 pm

The ’sculpture’ is a (choose-your-own-adjectival-expletive) *logo* tarted up in an artist’s conceptual, concealing pomp.

I’ve slowly been creating a desk based sculpture of books. It’s as if the speed in which I clean isn’t able to keep up with the stacking. The stolen moments not cleaning begin to satisfy my slovenly need for inertia

Posted by honest joe on 27/05/08, 5:48 pm

Post a comment

We no longer require you to register and have a password in order to comment, simply fill in the form below. All comments are moderated so you may experience a short delay before your comment appears. CR encourages comments to be short and to the point. As a general rule, they should not run longer than the original post. Comments should show a courteous regard for the presence of other voices in the discussion. We reserve the right to edit or delete comments that do not adhere to this standard.







Categories
Launch the Images of the Week Player
Categories

Sponsored links