Really interesting exhibition on at Tate Liverpool at the moment (they are housed in RIBA North while their gallery is being refurbished). It is called ‘Brickworks’ and includes this work by Jannis Kounellis from 1969.

Its not the original but a gallery copy. According to the description:

“Kounellis brings the specialist skill of dry-stone walling into the gallery. The work is remade each time it is exhibited using locally sourced stone. Usually encountered in rural areas, here the wall is out of place creating a blockage beyond which we cannot see”.

I would also argue that it forms barrier. In other iterations of this work the frame is clearly a doorway, but one we cannot pass through.

And that is also part of the theme of the exhibition. The simple brick (a term quite loosely used) is not only the literal building block of society, creating shelter and safety, but can also be used to divide, to deny and segregate. The brick is also a symbol of protest, a weapon of resistance. The simple manufactured brick or the stone in Kounellis’ wall can also be appreciated for their pure form and materiality.

I am very interested in how I might use drystone walls in my work. They are a ubiquitous feature in the landscape around me. I’ve rebuilt a 10m drystone in my own garden. But what place might it have in my art and how might that be brought into a gallery space? Or do I make my work outside or in the landscape?