EXHIBITION VISIT: Vanessa Jackson on Piccadilly
Piccadilly Circus
The Royal Academy brings art to Londoners with an outdoor exhibition on Piccadilly.
‘UPTOWN DANCING’ (2021)
On the 28th July, I made a journey to Piccadilly to witness an effort by the Royal Academy to make art visible to the public during difficult pandemic restrictions. Like a fiesta the street was full of hanging paintings by Michael Armitage, Farshid Moussavi and Yinka Shonibare and video shorts by Issac Julien, but the focus of my journey to the Piccadilly were the zebra crossings by Vanessa Jackson. Having met her once and had the privilege of taking part in a workshop run by her in her studio in 2018, I was keen to see how her paintings, geometric, bold and painterly, translated into a site-specific form. I had seen a photograph taken by a friend of one of her crossings before I made the visit, but I was taken by surprise by the quantity of crossings, 13 in total that spanned Piccadilly from Green Park station to the circus. The horizontal shift of Vanessa’s paintings grounded the bold geometric shapes, creating a view from a new perspective. Seeming to lift the ground up to her paintings, the bright colours contrasted significantly with the dark grey tarmac. More like a bridge, they appeared to float, like the red carpets laid out for celebrities, or the yellow brick road of Oz.
What I was most keen to witness was how the paintings interacted with the public. Moving from the walls of a gallery to a useable and busy space, did the work alter in its perception? I spent time, recording and watching as people crossed, and traffic passed over the paintings. Mostly it seemed that the viewers made no concessions to the unusual nature of the crossings. There is one photograph amongst my recordings taken where another person like me is capturing images, but I was surprised that mostly I appeared to be the only person taking real notice.
Man on a bicycle and woman taking photograph
The Piccadilly is a complicated space, with many activities and distractions. The shops, the history and the road as a space that moves through are dynamic factors. But the nature of a zebra crossing is a safe space for pedestrians to travel from one side of the street to the other. It creates a cut through the industry and the rush of activity to provide permission and access for safe passage. Under normal circumstances the symbol for this is a graphic black and white stripe that stretches the width of the street, hence known in the English language as a zebra crossing. The street comes alive with the colours of Vanessa’s crossings, and with the hanging canvases like bunting at a village fete, the RA creates a festive atmosphere. Perhaps celebrating the gradual opening of galleries after months of closure and interim periods of controlled access, the RA brings colour to the street and engages with the public without the complications of being in an interior space. Although the public appeared to be going about their daily business, seeming oblivious to the artwork surrounding them, it must surely have created a feel good atmosphere hard to ignore. It was a privilege to be gifted such generous work by the artists and the RA, and I am glad to have made the journey.