COLUMNS
Exhibition comprised of two iterative installations by Ben Kelly, in which the interior designer explored, and expanded on, the concept of the column – one of the fundamental architectural features of his design for the iconic Manchester nightclub, The Haçienda (1982).
- Submitting institution
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Kingston University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 32-54-0000
- Type
- M - Exhibition
- Venue(s)
- Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool, UK.
- Open access status
- -
- Month of first exhibition
- January
- Year of first exhibition
- 2017
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- COLUMNS (2017–2018) comprises two iterative installations, in which interior designer Kelly explored the concept of the column – one of the fundamental architectural features of his design for the iconic Manchester nightclub, The Haçienda (1982). The research was instigated through a commission from artist and creative entrepreneur Virgil Abloh, which developed into two installations: the six-piece COLUMNS (2017) for the exhibition North: Identity, Photography, Fashion at Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool, 6 January–19 March 2017, and NORTH: Fashioning Identity, Somerset House, London, 8 November 2017–4 February 2018; and the 12-piece COLUMNS for The Store X, 180 The Strand, London, 2 October–9 December 2018. Kelly critically interrogated the stylistic and symbolic form of columns, seeking to develop a new visual and formal language at a time when columns, as an architectural feature, no longer symbolise power and authority.
Kelly’s design language was informed by an examination of previous explorations of the column form, specifically Joseph Rykwert’s The Dancing Column (1996), and the kitsch appropriation of historical architectural tropes in Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown’s Learning from Las Vegas (1972). He analysed historical examples of columns to inform the development of a new typology of column forms, which could relate to contemporary themes of urban gentrification and architectural repurposing. As an originator of the contemporary use of columns as a visual design feature, Kelly sought to revive the column as an object of critical attention, exploring the symbolic qualities of these functional supports. COLUMNS expresses the complex relationship between urban decline and urban redevelopment by foregrounding an overlooked architectural feature.
COLUMNS was internationally recognised in the press. In 2019, Kelly and Abloh collaborated on a third development of the work, Manchester/Illinois, for Abloh’s exhibition Figures of Speech at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, 10 June–22 September 2019.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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