About the Skystation
"Gravity dictates the earth contains a buried past of dinosaurs and archeology, the surface reveals the activity of present daily life, but what is above is an empty field of possibility, a space in which to conceive and live the future."
Peter Newman
Skystation is an interactive public sculpture by Peter Newman, developed by Futureditions as a limited edition. Inspired by the form of famous architect and designer Le Corbusier’s iconic LC4 chaise longue, Skystation is a circular sculpture, that also acts as a piece of public seating. The contours of the work are designed to fit the reclining human figure and the work is sited outdoors, to encourage contemplation of the vast expanse of space above and beyond.
The original model of Skystation was first shown at the Guggenheim Museum in Venice during the Architecture Biennale. The first edition was installed for one week in the centre of Trafalgar Square, London and was then sited in St Mary Axe (between the Lloyds and Swiss Re buildings) and at Canary Wharf in 2005. Since then it has been installed at the prestigious New Art Centre at Roche Court in Wiltshire and shown to great acclaim at The Hayward Gallery on London’s Southbank during summer 2009. This sculpture is at home in both the urban environment and in a rural setting.
"Peter Newman’s sculpture is contemplative and with a strong physical presence; it examines the Utopian values of Modernist art but also has a transcendental quality to it."
Tim Marlow
Visit the Futureditions website| for more information about the Skystation edition
About the Artist
Peter Newman was born in London in 1969 and attended Goldsmith’s College, University of London, from 1987-1990. Newman’s practice encompasses painting, photography, video installation and sculpture. Since graduating, he has had solo exhibitions in London, Brussels, Hamburg, New York, Chicago and Tokyo. He has exhibited at the Royal Festival Hall, the Casa Massachio in San Giovanni Valdarno, Italy, The Hayward Gallery on London’s Southbank and at the Modern Museum of Luxembourg in their Design City exhibition. His work was also projected onto the exterior of the 21st Century Museum for Contemporary Art, in Kanazawa, Japan for the inaugural exhibition. In 1999 he was awarded the Mark Rothko Travel Scholarship and in 2005 he was awarded a grant from the Arts Council, with which he began the Skystation project.
Peter Newman creates sculptures that reflect the great expanses of sky, which overarch us, and the environment which surrounds us. His objects explore how human beings grasp external space through bodily situation. Newman has developed an on-going series of photographs that record the sky in different cities around the world. These photographs are taken using an ultra wide-angle lens that captures a 180 field of view. Originally invented for astronomy and to observe atmospheric phenomenon, the lens was first known as the ‘all-sky’ lens. Here the artist uses it to record the urban panorama overhead.
The Skystation project is a continuation of this thinking, expanding upon and reflecting these ideas in a sculptural form. Newman places the viewer in a collaborative position of both observer and subject, which further develops our reflective relationship with the sky above.
Visit Peter Newman’s website| for more information about the artist
