Bold Tendencies | Permanent Artworks

ID: a cross-section of a stairwell with steps going up on the left hand side and steps going down on the right hand side. All the surfaces, including hand rails, are painted in a vivid bubblegum pink.

SIMON WHYBRAY

hi boo i love you, 2016

First conceived by the artist as a love letter, this staircase represents the heartfelt anxieties of love and the enormity of trying to express this feeling: “I can’t just say ‘I love you’, it doesn’t mean anything. But I do want to tell everyone else. So I did.” The bubblegum pink that covers this stairwell resonates with contemporary pop culture and the saturation of pink as an aesthetic trope for youth, wealth and innocence online.

The work points to the infantilization of culture found in corporate marketing and the commodification of our nostalgia for adolescence. Materialising the logic of social media trends within a brutalist architecture, hi boo i love you nevertheless celebrates a candid and vulnerable experience of emotion that transcends the artificiality of the screen.

Simon Whybray (b. 1984, Milton Keynes) lives and works in London.

Photo: Mireia Bosch Roca

ID: several wide silver lives and painted directly onto a car park rooftop. They curve in several meanders and even raise up onto a lamppost base.

RICHARD WENTWORTH

Agora, 2015

Painted in aluminium rich paint (a standard roof finish in New York), Richard Wentworth’s Agora, commissioned in 2015, covers the entire surface of the car park. Mirroring the ever-changing weather conditions on site, the reflective design unifies and activates the space. The deceptively simple patterning has been compared to silvery snail trails as much as the decorative energy of Southern Europe’s traditional paving and textiles.

The work pursues Richard Wentworth’s long held passion for the meeting point between spatial conditions and social reality. Agora, a Greek word for gathering place, also shares an etymological root with ‘gregarious’, highlighting the work’s ambition to bring the space to life for the many people who come to visit. Agora emphasises the ‘polis’, the way we behave collectively in the city. Ironically, while we stand on Agora, probably in conversation, we can also witness the city which harbours us.

Richard Wentworth (b. 1947, Samoa) lives and works in London.

Photo: Quintin Lake

JENNY HOLZER

Bold Sign, 2023

Bold Sign is composed of two horizontal LED signs that use the visual language of her Times Square works of the 1980s. Displaying a continuous sequence of animated text, selections from Holzer’s iconic series are woven together to ask how personal and political meaning is created within various systems of power. These statements run from lyrical and poetic to acidic and incendiary, speaking to a polarised world of desire and politics.

Jenny Holzer (b. 1950, Ohio, USA) lives and works in New York.

Photography by Dan John Lloyd

ID: a life-sized bronze cast of a pigeon with a stick of dynamite and blackberry phone on its back is placed on a London bollard looking out toward the London skyline with ominous clouds above.

ADEL ABDESSEMED

Bristow, 2016

The title of Adel Abdessemed’s sculpture, Bristow, is taken from the signature work of the British cartoonist Frank Dickens (1931 – 2016), whose cartoon strip of the same name ran for 41 years in the Evening Standard.

The series follows the life of a downtrodden and monotonous clerk as he avoids doing useful work for his large city conglomerate; in particular, he is distracted by a frequent pigeon on his windowsill — an everyday character synonymous with claustrophobic metropolitan centres.

Combining this pedestrian creature with symbols of makeshift terrorism and instant messaging, Bristow captures a contemporary culture of fear mixed with the banality of everyday city life. Perched on a London bollard, it is a discreet reminder of the lack of faith we entrust in our neighbours, and the unsettling, suspicious ways in which this manifests throughout the world.

Adel Abdessemed (b. 1971, Algeria) lives and works in Paris.

Photo: Damian Griffiths

ID: a shingle garden with a number of wooden groyne benches follows the perimeter wall of a concrete rooftop with blue and cloudy skies in the background.

DEREK JARMAN GARDEN

The Derek Jarman Garden was designed by Dan Bristow (Propagating Dan) in 2013. It is inspired by artist and film-maker Derek Jarman (1942-1994), who left behind an extraordinary legacy in the form of his garden at Dungeness in Kent, recognised as a spectacular artwork in itself.

Derek Jarman’s own garden is located in the wild, dynamic landscape of Dungeness with its expansive shingle beach, lighthouses and power stations; the Derek Jarman Garden here at Peckham honours its essence with the garden as an organic foil to an urban, at times hostile, environment in the way that the seascape influenced the design of the garden at Dungeness. The Derek Jarman Garden at Bold Tendencies will always be in a shifting state, and through it we hope that Derek Jarman’s ideas continue to be explored and brought to new audiences.

The Derek Jarman Garden was commissioned by Bold Tendencies as part of the artistic programme curated by Joe Balfour with Greta Hewison in 2013, welcoming the original Dungeness garden’s colour and magic to the site to flourish against the harsh climate of the car park. The Garden here was imagined by Keith Collins (1966-2018) long-time companion of Derek Jarman and keeper of the Dungeness legacy, with the critical guidance and support of David Gothard.

ID: a raised black flag is set against a beautiful blue sky with white fluffy clouds. On the flag are sewn the words: LET ME LEAD.

RENE MATIĆ

no more quick, quick, slow, 2020

Speaking to the role of dance and intimacy in the history of multiculturalism, no more quick, quick, slow explores the legacy and intricacies of race relations(hips) in the United Kingdom.

The work’s title references a quote taken from Lucy Bland’s text Britain’s ‘Brown Babies’, recounting the history of white women meeting, loving and dancing with Black GI’s during WWII – “We English girls took to it like ducks to water. No more quick, quick, slow for us. This was living.”

The work itself is a call to action – to do and dance better. First shown here during the global 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, the work challenges what “to lead” really means, and who has the privilege and power to do so.

Rene Matić (b. 1997, Peterborough) lives and works in LondoN

Photo: Damian Griffiths

ID: a series of 10 mirror panels mounted on a concrete wall. They are each engraved with fragments of poetry in a variety of typefaces and formats.

SOPHIE COLLINS & SAM RIVIERE

FLOURISHED, 2016

Featuring 10 engraved mirrored panels mounted as a fractured mosaic on the car park wall, FLOURISHED uses a series of fragmented and cryptic notes to pose the question: ‘what does it mean to be remembered?’

The work is inspired by the ancient Greek poet, Sappho, considered one of the greatest lyric poets. Having written 10,000 lines of poetry in her lifetime, only 650 survive today and nearly all interpretations of her work have since been coloured by speculations on her sexuality and muddled by a long history of imitations, translations and alterations.

Adopting these tensions within a contemporary context, FLOURISHED speaks to the pliable and enduring notion of memory. It is an attempt to write fragments of a surviving poem as part of an imaginary legacy, presenting the cycle of what it means to be remembered, and what is lost.

Sophie Collins (b. 1989) lives and works in Glasgow.

Sam Riviere (b. 1981, Norwich) lives and works in Edinburgh.

ID: a large steel platform is installed on top of a concrete rooftop. It is painted soft green and its architecture is straight and minimalistic and mirrors that of the original car park. Beautiful blue skies are seen in the background.

COOKE FAWCETT ARCHITECTS PECKHAM OBSERVATORY

Built in 2017 the Peckham Observatory provides new perspectives on our on-site commissions as well as breathtaking views across London. From the Observatory visitors can take in the works of art and activities taking place on the roof of the car park.

The 3.5m-wide raised platform spans the entire width of the car park, its steel support beams cantilevered at both ends. Two staircases at either side provide an elevated promenade and on the northern tip the balustrade drops away at the half-landing to provide views out and across London. Nestled underneath the steelwork is a timber-framed Information Kiosk painted dark blue.

Photo: Peter Landers

ID: a large wooden A-frame is used to support a large red canopy over a rooftop cafe and restaurant. People are seen sitting on tables in the foreground and enjoying refreshments.

PRACTICE ARCHITECTURE FRANK'S CAFE

Frank’s Cafe was the first permanent architecture project at Bold Tendencies. It was designed by Practice Architecture (Lettice Drake & Paloma Gormley) and opened in 2009 by bartender Frank Boxer and chef Michael Davies.

Photo: Andy Matthews

ID: a wide angle view of the architecture of a single level of a brutalist car park. At the back of the level there is a concertina wall that stretches its entire width and is made from light wood with several in-set double doors.

COOKE FAWCETT ARCHITECTS CONCERT WALL

Completed between 2016 and 2017 this concertinaed plywood screen plugs into the raw dimensions and character of the original car park covered spaces. The 33 metre wide structure spans the lower levels at its widest point, providing an acoustic and visual backdrop for live music performances.

Photo: Peter Landers

PRACTICE ARCHITECTURE AUDITORIUM

Practice Architecture designed and built the Straw Auditorium in 2010.

Built predominantly from straw bales and seating 150, the in-the-round space forms a warm and intimate piece of punctuation amongst the wide concrete expanses.

Photo: Damian Griffiths