Martin Holman

Art Works in Wimbledon

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> About Richard Woods RENOVATION

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Art Works in Wimbledon is a voluntary association set up in 2005. Its first commission was RENOVATION by Richard Woods in August-September 2005. It was listed by the Guardian and the Independent as one of the best five shows in London at the time. Read about this exciting project below, on this page.

The group's objective is to bring artists and their audience together by commissioning leading practitioners to create new work for temporary installation in host locations in Wimbledon and its district. These projects aim to bring a consistently high standard of visual art to a part of London that has no permanent venue for art nor a tradition of building an audience for the most stimulating and innovative work being produced by artists today.

Art Works in Wimbledon works in partnership to introduce new art into the public space of Wimbledon. Its most important partners are artists and the general public. Facilitating that central partnership has been invaluable help from other partners, most notably Arts Council England, London through the Grants for the Arts scheme. Host venues have included the public parks administered by the London Borough of Merton and the estate of (the former) Wimbledon School of Art. Important facilitators have been project funders, among them The Elephant Trust, The Henry Moore Foundation, Friends of Cannizaro Park, Traders Antiques, Marcus Beale Architects, Robert Holmes & Company, Tot Taylor, Sparks, Time & Leisure Publications, Wimbledon Books & Music, Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts London, Wimbledon School of Art.

Opportunities for visitors to build on their interest in and enjoyment of these projects have been created through talks, seminars, guided visits, contextual exhibitions and social gatherings to meet and talk to the participating artists. Since 2003 Art Works in Wimbledon has worked with Year 12 and Year 13 art students at Wimbledon College, the largest state secondary school in Merton.

Governed by a constitution adopted in March 2005, Art Works in Wimbledon is a voluntary association. The director, Martin Holman, is the only permanent staff; he receives a project fee only. There is no core finance, and Art Works in Wimbledon supports its operation with special fund-raising.

In 2006 it received an arts development grant from Merton Council to support project research, governance, setting up a website (in hand) and some training for volunteers. Its committee has five members who bring their particular expertise: Roger Casale (MP for Wimbledon, 1997-2005); Martin Holman (writer and organiser); Elizabeth Nelson OBE (market research and business); Keith Wilson (artist); and Paul Wood (structural engineer).

Director: Martin Holman

Address: 3 The Grange, Wimbledon, London SW19 4PT

Contact: +44 (0)20 8946 5206  art_works_in_wimbledon@fsmail.net

Website under construction

Richard Woods RENOVATION

RENOVATION was a highly visible transformation of a typical suburban, early twentieth-century detached house into a typical London suburb into an eye-catching and highly idiosyncratic, comic book-style Pop Art recreation of itself. For four weeks in summer 2005 the house sported a temporary printed façade of exaggerated red cartoon-like bricks. Somehow, it seemed, a child-like fantasy of a make-believe toy house had wandered into reality.

      RENOVATION was the creation of the British artist, Richard Woods. This ambitious project took its place as the latest in his extraordinary series of captivating temporary makeovers. As this account of the commission describes, Woods is fascinated by the surfaces that people in their everyday lives choose to surround themselves with. Our houses, their decoration and the way they have been altered to suit the tastes and aspirations of every generation of owners, speak volumes about the way we see ourselves, express our hopes and recapture cherished memories. The suburbs are closely associated – in drama and literature as well as in fact – with that constant change through renovation.

        RENOVATION was at home in Wimbledon. Not far from the house in Merton Hall Road had been the riverside printing works where fabrics and wallpapers in William Morris’s designs for Liberty’s were made from their Victorian heyday until quite recently.

The location also offered passers-by a way to look at and ‘live with’ an artwork

         The display was rated among the top five shows in London in August 2005 by the Guardian and the Independent newspapers; in the Guardian it was number one for two weeks.

Commissioned by Art Works in Wimbledon and supported by Arts Council England. Installation and artist’s assistants supported by The Elephant Trust. Presentation supported by the Kirsgillow Fund, Marcus Beale Architects Ltd, Robert Holmes & Company, Sparks, Tot Taylor, Traders Antiques and special donations. Hosted by Wimbledon School of Art. Education partner Wimbledon College. Publication supported by Arts Council England, The Henry Moore Foundation, the Kirsgillow Fund, Galleria S.A.L.E.S., Rome, and special donations. Published by Art Works in Wimbledon and the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, University of Oxford in association with Lund Humphries

About Richard Woods

‘You actually feel separated from the world you know and love, even though you’re so aware that only the thinnest skin is keeping it at bay. The experience is definitely psychedelic: you are within the art and the art is affecting everything that happens.’  Gavin Wade in

Tank, vol.3, no.8 (2003)

Richard Woods (b. Cheshire, 1966) has been re-branding objects and environ-ments into an alternative reality since the late 1990s. Projects at Tabley House, near Chester, and Modern Art, the London dealer’s gallery (both 2000), Jeffrey Deitch Projects, New York (2002), the Venice Biennale and the Comme des Garçons store in Osaka (2003), and the projects in Woodstock, Miami, Hoxton and Oxford described in this report have been important staging posts in his development of floor and wall (interior and outside) pieces.

     Group shows have included At One Remove (Henry Moore Institute, Leeds) and Here to Stay (Arts Council Collection). His first one-person exhibition took place in Winchester in 1988, followed by Cargo at Arched Space, London, in 1990. He was among nine artists selected for the Barclays Young Artist Award in 1991 (with an exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery, London). Solo shows have taken place in London, New York, Athens, Rome, Paris, Berlin and Turin since 1994.

     His work has a distinct, individual quality best compared with a ‘logo’, a notion that reflects acutely on the artist’s rather interrogative purpose. He also admits a narrative strain and a degree of pathos that are unusual elements still in contemporary sculpture.

     Woods completed his BA in fine art at Winchester School of Art in 1988, and his MA at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London in 1990. He lives and works in London.

RENOVATION Free Events - the Record

The House Next Door

Open Wednesday to Saturday

In the house alongside RENOVATION two rooms were set up as a contextual display of images and text from previous projects by Richard Woods, past commissions in Cannizaro Park and two videos documenting the installation, made by Wimbledon School of Art MA students Stefan Gant and Ben Iliffe

An Evening about the House

Wednesday 7 September at 6.30pm

Three speakers talked informally about RENOVATION on a summer’s evening. The panel was artist Conor Kelly, V&A curator Gill Saunders and David Thorp, formerly head of contemporary projects at The Henry Moore Foundation

Agendas: Conversation with Richard Woods

Thursday 15 September at 6.30pm

Martin Holman talked to the artist about RENOVATION, his way of working and its origins in Woods’ interest in decoration, surface, architecture and materials. The event was filmed by Wimbledon School of Art

RENOVATION and Schools

Collaboration with Wimbledon College

September to December 2005

Throughout the Christmas term, A level art students at Merton’s largest state secondary school developed ideas about form, surface and the sense of place with reference to RENOVATION. The four sessions comprised a guided visit to the installation and Wimbledon School of Art’s MA exhibition; a visit to Woods’ London studio, then to Tate Modern and the Jan de Cock and Rachel Whiteread installations; a practical workshop with artist Stephen Nelson; and a ‘crit’ of the term’s work and an opportunity for students to talk their ideas through with Richard Woods

RENOVATION - the Book

RENOVATION and art in the public realm

RENOVATION was nominated for inclusion on the Axis.web site that highlights important interventions by artists in the public realm. You can read about Axis and this project on http://www.axisweb.org/

All Images of RENOVATION Copyright Richard Woods