James Moruzzi is studying book arts at London College of Communication. In his spare time he breeds ferrets and enjoys expressing his sexuality through contemporary dance.

Antigone Valery tells us about three of her sculptures influenced by her time in London, and comments on what the city means to her.

I have always been intrigued by architectural spaces, business buildings, blocks of flats, buildings that are being constructed and those that are being demolished.

Buildings mostly stand there and witness the transient and constantly changing landscape of a city, sometimes hiding an older city beneath.

Corners, junctions, curves, narrow alleys, wide streets, etc. create smaller spaces and forms within a space. I am interested in visually exploring the big monumental buildings that look lifeless in the exterior, but, that also enclose life. In a way, most  people could relate to a space in the city we live in as “a symbol of solitude for the imagination;” as Gaston Bachelard says in his book “The Poetics of Space”.

In my boxes I attempted to create small spaces, corners, angles using not a room but a whole building. Intensionally, I wanted them to have a sensitivity, a fragility – by making small empty spaces, without using any human presence.

I like Giorgio de Chirico paintings of empty squares with hints of human presence – like the smoke of the chimneys or the trains in the distance.

In most of my work there is no direct emotion. I try to keep the works clean from my emotions; though perhaps some viewers can relate to the works differently because of their own experiences, memories from different spaces and places within the city.

How does London compare to another city you know well?         

I dont want to compare London to Athens, for example, because I feel that they can’t be compared. They are totally different in culture, people and weather – both are special to me!

Where do you like to relax in London?           

I prefer to take long walks – either in the city, by the riverside or in the parks

How does London inspire you artistically?     

Many major art things happen in London, there are many galleries and museums displaying important artworks. I like the atmosphere – the merging of the old and new.

How does London make you feel?           

When I was living in London I was feeling excited, strong and free of all the things I could see and do. Every time I talk about it I have “happy thoughts”. Every time I visit I feel like I never left!

If you were Mayor of London for a day, what would you do?       

I am sorry but I would not accept the position!

“For over 200 years, posters have been displayed in public places all over the world. Visually striking, they have been designed to attract the attention of passers-by, making us aware of a political viewpoint, enticing us to attend specific events, or encouraging us to purchase a product or service.”

-Max Gallo

Interested as I was, in the use of posters for propaganda and advertising, I was disappointed to discover that the Underground is no longer the platform for avant-garde poster art it once was. The walls of stations and platforms are now plastered with uninspiring drivel, aimed at luring us to the latest West End production, or enticing to buy cheaper car insurance. This apparent lack of creativity in advertisement is not limited to the sphere of public transport. At one time, posters were a vital public relations tool, used to gain support for war, to manipulate public opinion and to justify government policies. However, the age of the poster as the preferred method for government spin has long gone, and the internet and television are seen as the most effective means to engage with a disinterested and apathetic electorate. 

Purely textual posters have a long history, from advertising Shakespeare’s plays, to spreading government proclamations. However, the revolution in poster production came about with the development of new printing techniques, specifically the process of lithography, invented in 1796 by Alois Senefelder. Jules Chéret, considered the ‘father’ of advertisement placards, founded a small lithography office in Paris in 1866,where he created over 1100 advertisements, primarily for exhibitions, theatres and products. Cheret developed a new lithography technique which used more vibrant colour and innovative typography, creating a more expressive style. This new type of poster, and its amenability to mass production in colour, transformed the thoroughfares of Europe’s cities into the “art galleries of the street.” 

Frank Pick was one of the first to see the potential of the poster as a means of advertising the Underground. Prior to this, it had been conceived solely as a means of raising revenue by charging other companies for poster space on stations. At the time progressive main-line railway companies were already using coloured lithographic posters as a means of publicity. Pick adopted the same techniques and adapted them to London, cultivating the notion that everything the city had to offer was available through travel by bus, tram or Underground; the lifeblood of the capital. Pick recognized the importance of presentation and the need to reorganize. The previous system was unattractive and ineffective, making it difficult for commuters to pick out basic information and even station names. 

Pick’s approach was always to entice prospective travellers indirectly. The posters rarely showed the method of travel, but rather focused on the destination. Once usage patterns changed, commuters became a captive market that did not need to be told about their everyday experience. The focus of Underground publicity shifted accordingly; the posters now encouraged commuters and their families to make extra journeys during off-peak periods such as evenings and weekends, when many of the Underground’s trains were lying idle. These posters highlighted the pleasures of London, such as museums, theatres, cinemas, shops, parks, and sporting events or simply the sights of London. Pick held that: 

“In advertising the Underground, London itself is advertised. Millions of people through the year now look to the Underground announcements to decide how they shall travel and what place of amusement or country excursion they should choose. Londoners know their way about better and enjoy their London far more since the Underground began to address them by posters.” 

In commissioning work, Pick would consider unknown and established artists alike, often experimenting with young artists recommended to him through art schools. Pick believed that, “there is room in posters for all styles. They are the most eclectic form of art. It is possible to move from the most literal representation to the wildest impressionism as long as the subject remains understandable to the man in the street.” However, Pick always argued that advertising which was slightly above people’s heads was preferable to a descent to the lowest common denominator. A good poster could be both inspirational and aspirational. 

During 1920s and 1930s Underground posters became more than a medium for promoting transport services. The Underground station effectively became a venue for constantly changing exhibitions of modern art. Many artists commissioned by the Underground were influenced by avant-garde European art movements of the early 20th century, and the posters became popular commercial interpretations of these styles. Cubism, Futurism and Vorticism all reached the general public in Britain via Underground posters. The simplification of images into dramatic, geometric compositions was particularly appropriate to the medium and stimulated an exciting new creative approach by artists. 

Whether the Underground genuinely influenced popular artistic taste through its posters is debatable, but there are numerous claims to this affect. The art critic Anthony Blunt, commenting on Kauffer’s work in 1935, suggested that “apart from producing admirable posters, McKnight Kauffer has rendered another important service to modern art. By using the methods of the more advanced schools, and by putting them before the men in the street in such a way as to catch them off their guard, so that they are lured into liking the poster before they realise that it is just the kind of thing which they loathe in the exhibition gallery.” 

During the First World War, Underground posters were used for propaganda as well as advertisement. During the early stage of the war, travel advertisements continued to promote pleasure trips as if nothing had changed. These were displayed alongside sombre army recruitment posters. As the war dragged on, it was no longer considered appropriate to encourage leisure travel, but the romantic appeal of Britain’s countryside was used in posters sent out by the Underground to troops overseas as ‘reminders of home.’ 

The Second World War had a much more immediate effect on the Underground; unnecessary travel was discouraged and publicity posters ceased only a few months after the outbreak of war. The main role for pictorial posters was now to provide information and, increasingly, to boost the morale of passengers and staff. A special series of posters was commissioned to commemorate the everyday heroism of civilian workers in wartime. The sitters for these images were all members of London Transport’s staff. 

Following the end of the Second World War, Pick’s tradition of commissioning poster art was revived on a reduced scale. However, the new campaign began to lose momentum in the 1950s: the posters seemed limited in scope, representing an apparent lack of talented young graphic artists. The poster’s inability to stem the decline in passenger numbers was taken as a sign of its outdated usefulness. 

During the 1960s and 1970s art poster publicity was regarded as an irrelevant luxury. Commissions to artists were dramatically cut as publicity posters were contracted out to agencies that tended to use photographic images rather than artwork and could not always match the innovation and variety of the previous era. In 1986 Dr Henry Fitzhugh, Marketing and Development Director of the Underground, revived direct commissions to artists. However, this poster campaign differed from earlier campaigns in that it was not intended either as advertising or as publicity. Rather, the ‘Art on the Underground’ scheme was intended to display newly commissioned fine art in poster form, and was funded separately from the Underground’s main advertising and publicity campaigns. It was conceived as a means of corporate art sponsorship, whereby the Underground would commission original works of art and reproduce them as posters. The cost of this was no more than would be required to create advertising ‘fillers’ from other sources, and it was primarily a way of filling unsold space. Yet Fitzhugh was adamant that he was not simply using posters as decorative wallpaper for tube stations. His stated intention was to use the scheme “to promote art, especially fine art, and its appreciation among our customers, and to promote young artists.”

Fitzhugh left the Underground in the early 1990’s, and the art scheme was reviewed because ‘Art on the Underground’ was no longer needed to fill unsold poster space. London Transport Advertising was privatized and its new owners started selling poster space far more aggressively. Research showed, however, that the art poster scheme remained popular with the Underground’s customers, who appreciated attractive images that were not aimed at ‘hard sell’ advertising and whose messages could be easily understood. This was the conclusion that Frank Pick had reached more than 60 years earlier, and it was used to argue the case for the art scheme, though with closer links to specifically targeted marketing campaigns. 

There is no reason why the walls of tube stations across London cannot be reclaimed from the grasp of soulless advertising, and restored to their potential as art spaces for the masses. To make this a reality, art students must be encouraged to see poster art as a valid, worthwhile art form, rather than the poorer brother of art exhibited in galleries. Art students with their new ideas and fresh perspectives can rejuvenate an art form that has become stale and lifeless. Poster art could give commuters an insight into emerging art movements, rather than relying on clichéd scenes and lazy, listless images. After all, art is something to be enjoyed by all, not solely within the stuffy confines of an art gallery, which many people do not enter from one year to the next. High quality art must be accessible to all, and what better platform than the Underground?

A collection of works by LSE student Caroline Ward.

Anselm Kiefer's Lilith

Have you ever stepped into a modern art gallery, and secretly whispered under your breath: “Yet another blob of paint. I could do that!”? No guilty feelings- the thought probably passes through every visitor’s head, however reluctantly they wish to admit it.

But Anselm Kiefer’s Lilith, part of the Tate Modern collection, will give you second thoughts. As you enter the largest room of the 3rd floor Tate, the piece that tears at your eyes is the gigantic bronze triangle dangling from the ceiling (Joseph Beuys’ Lightning with Stag in its Glare). But what your eyes have silently ignored in the room is the murky grey rectangle hanging silently opposite. Standing 20 meters away, the rectangle of grey remains at most a stormy, agitated ocean, but step closer and the waves’ foam will sharpen to harsh black angles, while their crests surge aggressively towards you. And as they do…. You find yourself engulfed and tangled into a world at the opposite side of the spectrum to the ocean: a filthy, austere and ruthless conurbation.

Inspired by Sao Paolo’s skyscrapers, pollution, and noise, Kiefer brings to life the metropolis in its bleakest sense. Rather than distance the onlooker, the painting’s plunging, aerial view, a pre-cursor to ‘google-earth’, propels the viewer into the sea of grey. Or perhaps the painting rather resembles the Imax theatre: the painting acts as your 3-D glasses to ‘The City”. The materials and layered paints bring out this third dimension, with the skyscrapers literally etched into paint more than an inch thick, and copper wires winding through the streets like a deadly snake. Just by looking at it, you feel the dirt, the grime, the heat. The painting’s materials speak for themselves. Oil, ash and copper. Kiefer has simply transferred the building blocks of our cities to canvas. Like the Imax theatre, you don’t simply see it, you live it.

The painting, with its rare set of materials and its cruelly absorbing perspective hit something deep inside me. I’ve always loved big cities: their bustling, dynamic and even romantic atmosphere. But too often, we, and myself in the lead, tend to overlook or perhaps ignore the flip side of the coin. Kiefer’s grey ‘blob’ is a fierce reminder of the true nature of our own constructions.

But once you’ve stepped out of Kiefer’s world, do take a glance at London city from the Tate’s windows- not the least to reassure yourself that there is still beauty to be found in a city…