Torn Poster – Georges Road Stockport

Mimmo Rotella Best known for his works of décollage and psychogeographics, made from torn advertising posters. He was associated to the Ultra-Lettrists an offshoot of Lettrism and later was a member of the Nouveau Réalisme, founded in 1960 by the art critic Pierre Restany.

Inspiration to all lovers of the torn poster, The Society of the Spectacle reduced to the exasperating Esperanto of the inexplicable.

Working towards the demise of the – autocratic reign of the market economy.

Hannah Höch 

I wish to blur the firm boundaries which we self-certain people tend to delineate around all we can achieve.

My name is Kurt Schwitters – I am an artist and I nail my pictures together.

New things had to be made out of fragments.

Together they begin to define the realm of cut and paste collage technology, the chance encounter, the hastily arranged marriage and the jarring clash of culture and counter-culture.

They are my guiding lights – by which to live, look and learn, to loop the Möbius loop into an expanding geometry of new meanings.

The lines curve toward each other and intersect.

JCDecaux was founded in 1964 in Lyonby Jean-Claude Decaux. Over the years it has expanded aggressively, partly through acquisitions of smaller advertising companies in several countries. They currently employ more than 13,030 people worldwide and maintain a presence in over 75 countries.

Outdoor advertising, reaches more than 410 million people on the planet every day.

Some days everything falls apart.

Huddersfield Contemporary Art Trail

I was invited by eminent Huddersfield based Psychogeographer Phil Wood to take a tour with him around the Huddersfield Contemporary Art Trail.

An alternate art trip devised by local art trippers Red Fodder.

We set forth from Huddersfield Station on Monday 13th January 2020 at the prearranged time of 14.00 hours. The weather was resolutely overcast and increasingly cold, with an ever present threat of rain.

Never to be knowingly deterred we made good progress around the town – we were hungry for art, the more contemporary the better.

Almost every avenue, alley and byway explored these are the snaps I snapped during our crazy Kirklees caper.

Along the way I added my own small contribution to the town’s contemporary art stock.

A veil was finally drawn over the afternoon’s cultural caprice with fine glasses of foaming ale in The Grove, where I finally came face to face with the Red Fodder folk for the very first time.

A fitting end to a thirsty day’s work.

Eva Brothers – Clayton Manchester

Eva Brothers of Crabtree Forge, Crabtree Lane, Clayton, Manchester.

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1909  The partnership of James Eva, Archibald William Eva, Victor Eva, Arthur Eva, and Frank Eva, carrying on business as Forge-masters, at Crabtree-lane, Clayton, Manchester, under the style or firm of Eva Bothers was ended. All debts due would be settled by Archibald William Eva, Victor Eva, Arthur Eva, and Frank Eva, who continued the business under the same style.

By 1953 The EVA group of companies was the largest edge tool makers in the world, exporting most of their products. The associated companies included: Chillington Tool Co, Edward Elwell Limited of Wednesbury, A. W. Wills and Son Limited of Birmingham, John Yates and Co Limited of Birmingham, and the Phoenix Shovel Co Limited of Cradley Heath.

1958 Acquired T. Williams Drop forgings and Tools of Small Heath, Birmingham

1959 Planned to convert into a holding company; depressed demand for heavy engineering but continued group prosperity were anticipated.

1960 Eva Brothers paid dividends and made scrip issue; changed the name to Eva Industries as the holding company.

1976: Eva Brothers continued to be a part of Eva Industries.

Graces Guide – for further information.

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This is where Manchester’s prosperity was created, engineering along with King Cotton, formed the financial foundations of the city. These industries are now all but vanished, along with the communities and skills that created them, work and wealth are elsewhere.

Years of free-market economics, acquisition, asset stripping, amalgamation and monopoly have bequeathed a legacy of loss.

Once bustling and business like sheds and yards, are now forests of buddleia and bramble. The sound of metal on metal, but a dull memory, amidst the wilder side of wildlife and the gentle whisper of peeling paint.

Come with me now to the Kingdom of Rust.

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Found Art

For more years than I care to remember I have had an interest in Found Art.

The naturally occurring collision of printed material, the unseen hand and weather.

Our streets are literally littered with the stuff.

Conscious of the work of Kurt Schwitters, Hannah Hoch, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, I’m conscientiously out and about in search of the unconscious.

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Here’s a sample of my findings so far:

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Lost and Found – Tiviot Dale

Ὁ βίος βραχύς,ἡ δὲ τέχνη μακρή,ὁ δὲ καιρὸς ὀξύς,ἡ δὲ πεῖρα σφαλερή,ἡ δὲ κρίσις χαλεπή.

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I have no wish to take issue, with the finer thoughts and feelings of Deborah A. Ten Brink.

However.

There is a sense that our earthly endeavours, may serve to assist us in avoiding the void, the cold dark inevitability of eternity, that everyday here today, gone tomorrow feeling.

However.

Nothing lasts forever, except forever and nothing.

The cherished memories, condensed in a fraction of a second, rendered corporeal in photographic emulsion, carefully stored in family albums.

Are but a trick of light, a slight of hand, heart and mind.

Blink and they’re gone.

Blink again and you’re gone.

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Here they were.

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Here they are.

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