1. EXCLUSIVELY BRITISH | September/October 15EXCLUSIVELY BRITISH | September/October 15 5554
ALEX
CHINNECK
INTERVIEW WITH
CREATIVE
MINDS
Welcome to the
mind-warping world
of Alex Chinneck.His
large-scale architectural
works play with reality, raise
a smile and make you question
the familiar.And then they’re
gone. Kathryn Reilly meets with
Alex to find out what it’s all about.
Words | KATHRYN REILLY
FromtheKneesofMyNosetotheBellyofMyToes,2013

2. EXCLUSIVELY BRITISH | September/October 15EXCLUSIVELY BRITISH | September/October 15 5756
’m not an illusionist but
the work is illusionary,
if that makes sense.
I’m not a showman but
my work does have a
theatricality.’
Getting your head around the
sheer audacity of 30-year-old
conceptual artist Alex Chinneck’s
work can take time. His aim is
to bring ‘surprises, abstraction
and ambiguity,’ to the streets,
distorting and seemingly defying
reality. But these spectacles are
largely fleeting. How important is
impermanence? ‘Very,’ he asserts.
In Chinneck’s world, everything
needs a beginning, middle and
end. ‘I’m obsessed with progress,
and I’m excited by being freed
to move on to something new’.
None of his works are ‘conceived
with permanence in mind. In this
fast-paced world we have a need
for new, invigorating experiences.
Nothing lasts forever and nothing
should.’ He has a palpable dislike of
things hanging around so long that
they become over-familiar.
‘My peace of mind isn’t accom-
plished until it’s removed,’ he says.
In fact, by the time the works are
dismantled (or have melted in the
case of A Pound of Flesh for 50p),
he finds he ‘almost hates them’
so demanding have they been in
terms of time and mental energy.
These cross-discipline, paradoxical
pieces are huge in terms of
ambition and daring.
Before the building-sized works
came smaller schemes. But these
were no less cerebral in conception
or difficult to construct. Self
Employed was a curling chimney
that pumped smoke back into
itself, the wood-chip based ‘canvas’
Fighting Fire With Ice Cream (2011)
characteristically subverted the
use of materials, and concrete
rugs (Concrete Cross Dresser, 2010)
have all gained acclaim. Stepping
up the scale, Under the Thumb to
Hide from the Fingers (2013) was
an inverted thatched roof that
moved like a weather vane. Then
Chinneck moved outside perma-
nently and began his architectural
designs, the audacity of which
would deter a lesser artist. ‘With
scale comes cost. Bigger work
speaks an architectural language.’
He admits that some of his ideas
have proved unachievable but,
largely, he and his collaborators
find a way to realise his dreams.
‘We set ourselves considerable
challenges. I create the problems
and my engineer solves them,’ he
laughs.
‘The use of illusion looks effortless,
but it’s extraordinarily complex
to achieve. Just because it’s
playful doesn’t mean it doesn’t
have serious intent,’ he believes.
Accessibility – essential in the
public realm of civic art – is also
important to Alex. But he has some
detractors. ‘The Intellectual elite
are suspicious of it. They don’t
know what to do with it. Popular
is bad.’
Just how did he end up doing this
very particular work?
‘My father was a PE teacher and I
was supposed to be a professional
sportsman,’ he reveals. But he ‘fell
in love with painting’ at 16 ’rebelling
against my upbringing’ went to
study painting (at Chelsea College
of Art & Design) ‘just to try it for a
year’. He stayed the course and left
to take the traditional artistic path.
The use of
illusion looks
effortless,
but it’s ex-
traordinarily
complex to
achieve.
Just because
it’s playful
doesn’t mean
it doesn’t
have serious
intent.
CREATIVE MINDS
I
UndertheWeatherbutOvertheMoon(2013)
Under the Thumb to Hide from the Fingers (2013)
:

3. EXCLUSIVELY BRITISH | September/October 15EXCLUSIVELY BRITISH | September/October 15 5958
‘I had a studio, did gallery shows…’
But he didn’t want to be the kind
of artist ‘making the art they think
they should be making’.
He didn’t hold back. Inspired in
part by Rachel Whiteread’s House,
his architectural installations
make the viewer question the
nature and role of everyday
materials. Under the Weather
but Over the Moon (2013) is an
inverted four-storey building in
Southwark. Pick Yourself Up and
Pull Yourself Together (2014), sees a
car suspended upside down from
a ‘curling wave’ of tarmac. Take
My Lightning but Don't Steal my
Thunder (2014) created the illusion
that a piece of Covent Garden
market had broken free and was
floating in the air. Pound of Flesh
for 50p (2014) was a large house
made almost entirely from wax
that was heated each night until
it melted away. His sliding house
in Margate (From the Knees of My
Nose to the Belly of My Toes, 2013)
is still there but could be knocked
down at any moment should a
developer buy the site.
‘My best work was Telling the
truth through false teeth (2012)
– it’s the only one I was sad to
see go. It was just subtle enough
that you might miss it,’ he muses.
For this powerful piece he
smashed near-identical holes in
312 glass panes in an abandoned
warehouse in Hackney.
The clever and wry titles are
generally arrived upon when a
name becomes a necessity. ‘I put
a lot of thought into it,’ says Alex.
‘They’re my one area of creative
indulgence.’ But they’re usual-
ly given flight when a name is
needed for the purposes of pub-
licity and PR. There’s one special
project that still hasn’t material-
ised yet – the ‘upside down’ wind-
mill where the mill moves rather
than the sails. ‘We’ve designed a
lot of it inside the studio – it’s a
real labour of love but it needs a
sponsor’. By September 2015, over
100 people will be working on A
Bullet From A Shooting Star – part
of the London Design Festival – a
pylon that juts out of the earth
as if thrown by the gods. Once
again, the decay and dereliction
of post – industrial sites has
inspired Alex. ‘I use the context
of the site to inform the design.’
This piece bears all the hallmarks
of Chinneck it’s illusory, shocking,
amusing and huge; 15 tonnes or
1,000 metres of steel, 35 metres
tall, with 19 metre-deep piles and
78m³ of concrete ‘foundation’ be-
neath the surface. At night, it will
take on another life, pinpointing
the city and casting a lattice of
shadows in its wake. Sited on
the still undeveloped Greenwich
Peninsula, next to what used to be
called the Dome, it will live for just
nine months.
CREATIVE MINDS
› ALEX'S
PROJECT
AT THE
LONDON
DESIGN
FESTIVAL
Abulletfroma
shootingstar
DON'TMISS
*
19-27September
A Pound of Flesh for 50p (2014)
Telling the truth through false teeth (2012)
Take My Lightning but Don't Steal my Thunder (2014)
