Kiss Wall
Browse information by: Location Makers General Information Classification Object Parts Object Condition History References Photographs | Author: Anthony McIntosh Copyright for Photograph: Creative Commons |
Location
Street: | Grand Junction Road |
Town: | Brighton |
Parish: | Brighton |
Council: | Brighton & Hove City Council |
County: | East Sussex |
Postcode: | BN1 |
Location on Google Map | |
Object setting: | Road or Wayside |
Access is: | Public |
Location note: | Seafront promenade, at the top of East Street groyne |
In the AZ book: | East Sussex |
Page: | 162 |
Grid reference: | E9 |
The A-Z books used are A-Z East Sussex and A-Z West Sussex (Editions 1A 2005). Geographers' A-Z Map Company Ltd. Sevenoaks. | |
back to top |
Makers
Name : | Bruce Williams |
Role: | Sculptor |
back to top |
General Information
Commissioned by: | Brighton Festival Trust |
Commissioned also by: | Sponsored by British Gas and Arts Council of England, |
Construction period: | 1991-1992 |
Installation date: | 1992 |
Unveiling date: | 22/07/1992 |
Work is: | Extant |
Owner custodian: | Brighton & Hove City Council |
Object listing: | Not listed |
Description: | Panel depicting photographs of six kissing couples, flanked by curved seating on each side. Photographs were transformed by computer into a dot screen drilled though a thick sheet of aluminium. |
Iconographical description: | Illustrates diversity of Brighton’s population. |
back to top |
Classification
Categories: | Sculptural, Free Standing |
Object type1: | Street furniture |
Object type2: | Panel |
Subject type1: | Pictorial |
Subject subtype1: | Group |
Subject type2: | Figurative |
Subject subtype1: | Group |
Subject type3: | Portrait |
back to top |
Object Parts
Part 1: | Panel |
Material: | Alluminium magnesium alloy painted with dark blue car enamel |
Height (cm): | 420 |
Width (cm): | 155 |
Depth (cm): | 2 |
back to top |
Object Condition
Overall condition: | Poor |
Risk assessment: | At risk |
Condition 1 of type: | Surface |
Condition 1: | Corrosion, deterioration |
Condition 2: | Previous treatments |
More details: | Paint surface on both sides of panel and flanking seats badly eroded, particularly at bottom. Paint has been touched up in a different blue. |
Condition 2 of type: | Structural |
Condition 1: | Cracks, splits, breaks, holes |
More details: | Panel is set into asphalt path surface which is cracked. |
Condition 3 of type: | Vandalism |
Condition 1: | Graffiti |
Condition 2: | Surface damage |
More details: | Flyposted stickers on lower halves of front and back of panel. Graffitti on lower right hand side of back (facing sea) Originally had a plaque with the artist’s name and the sculpture’s title. It was removed by vandals and never replaced by the council. |
Date of on-site inspection: | 10/12/2007 |
back to top |
History
History: | Sources:
http://www.brighton.co.uk/arts/Public_Art.asp Beryl Graham, ‘Maximum Exposure: Photography as Public Art’, SF Camerawork Quarterly, San Francisco, Fall, 1993 (www.sunderland.ac.uk) Martin Rieser, ‘Art on the Edge’, Printmaking Today, summer edition, 2000 'Bruce Williams states that ''Kiss Wall is a celebration…calling for equality, understanding and acceptance between all individuals'' and the sculpture celebrates ''a human contact not known to transmit the HIV virus''. Indeed the sculpture affirms the kiss as a romantic and sexual or simply affectionate positive, untouched and even relieved by the dark background if Aids-consciousness.' (Arts Review, 1992. - article provided by the sculptor) |
back to top |
References
back to top |
Photographs
Author: Anthony McIntosh Copyright: Creative Commons | Author: Anthony McIntosh Copyright: Creative Commons |
Author: Anthony McIntosh Copyright: Creative Commons | Author: Anthony McIntosh Copyright: Creative Commons |
back to top |