Sam Clayton and Mark Jacobs - Statement
The oneplace residency scheme presented
us with the opportunity to continue our ongoing investigations into
a shared set of interests that seemed to be encapsulated by Tatton
Park.
These investigations we hoped would include; the historical and
the (un)natural, the social and the spatial, folly and ruin, the
geological and the aeronautical, the cups of tea and the sandwiches.
Through strolling and discussion followed by research and more discussion
our collaborative technique is well honed - though approaching any
residency with no real idea of how or if work will become manifest
is always odd.
The Pleasure grounds and their enduring presence in the 21st century
reveal a complex palimpsest of meanings; layers of (dis)order and
folly accumulate with myth and history in one location where we
find ourselves in the present day charged with the task of making
art(work).
The work made was a result of several recurring points of interest/annoyance
that our perambulations seemed always to lead back to. Namely the
strange location, home of the choragic monument that is the truncation
of the Beech avenue. The Choragic monument itself that had survived
to this point with a greatness we both enjoyed and the troposphere
overhead where the incessant movement of aircraft rooted every romantic
fancy firmly in the present.
It was researching the monument and its kind that pointed us again
to the avenue. A street lined with monuments that lead to the greek
chorus; one such lantern made for the patron Lysicrates the only
example left standing in Athens. A reworking of an ancient ruin,
built in Cheshire to act as exclamation mark to a garden.
We wanted to experiment with an avenue of lights but it was impossible
to compete against such a monumental ornament in sculptural terms.
We admitted defeat and leaving Repton behind, went to B&Q for
our garden ornaments. Our Choragic copies would be made in China.
Negotiations with Manchester Airport followed and they allowed us
to experiment with our ‘runway’ though we knew its attempts
at being either a runway seen by the ever present planes or as a
new addition to the grandiose follies of the pleasure grounds would
both fail.
Aiming more for the flying gramophones of William Egerton, the daft
and changeable installation of Choragic ornaments feebly try to
make their presence felt and add another layer of oddity.