Bernie Lubell in the UK

If you are in the UK this summer it is worth visiting San Francisco
based artist Bernie Lubell’s ‘A Theory of Entanglement’ exhibition which opened at FACT, Liverpool, last month. http://www.fact.co.uk/

“..the artworks need you to interact with them to make them function,
so feel free to pedal, touch, wind and even get inside the artworks,
and ask the gallery assistants if you need to know what to do. We
hope you enjoy playing with the exhibition. Have fun!”

Karen Newman, Curator FACT.

The title piece of the exhibition is a new commission designed especially for FACT’s atrium, and is a giant knitting machine. Here’s a short report on the piece by our roving reporter Paul Spooner. There are also four more machines here: http://www.fact.tv/videos/watch/605

Mechanics Alive!! in Glasgow

Mechanics Alive!! is now open at the Scotland Street School Museum in Glasgow. The exhibition is an essential on your itinerary if you are in Scotland over the summer.

The Museum setting is a Victorian school (a beautiful Mackintosh designed building) which closed exactly 30 years ago on the launch of the CMT exhibition. Children (and adults) are welcome to take part in the free workshops to Design Automata, and there are 35 pieces on display.

Click here to see the Facebook album of the exhibition.

Sketchbook Moment No. 35

Inspirational Architecture:
Yes we cantilever

At Home with Automata

We had a chat about collecting contemporary automata with TV personality and interior designer, Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen today.

He is making a new series for ITV1 called ‘House Gift’ which will be screened in the UK later this summer.

Laurence had been to CMT in Covent Garden years ago, but had then forgotten all about automata until he visited the house of an avid automata collector (whose house will be part of the series), and was so inspired by the collection that he contacted us to find out more.

Fi Henshall

We are delighted to offer some pieces from a new artist, Fi Henshall, a sculpture graduate from Falmouth College of Arts in Cornwall.

Fi was inspired by childhood visits to CMT in Covent Garden, and more recently by automata/machine maker Rob Higgs, whose attitude to making things convinced her that anything is possible. So she started to make automata, and was particularly attracted to it by the fact that, once made, they can be brought to life by anybody at the turn of a handle.

Fi enthuses about these new pieces, and says ‘The apparently idiosyncratic ways in which things can be made to move fascinates me. I enjoy the improbability of it all- even when I know something works, I find it hard to believe that the haphazard collection of cams and levers before me will really make something come to life. I work with a combination of materials as this stops me becoming too precious with any one of them, and ensures that I am always learning something new and discovering new things.’

Buy work from Fi Henshall in our online shop now:

Petits Fours £950

Liquorice Drops £295

Jack Daniels 1 £450