Art Maps and Cities: Contemporary Artists Explore Urban Spaces

217 Pages·2022·11.316 MB·English

by  Gloria Lanci

Art Maps and Cities
Contemporary Artists
Explore Urban Spaces
Gloria Lanci
Art Maps and Cities
Gloria Lanci
Art Maps and Cities
Contemporary Artists Explore Urban Spaces
Gloria Lanci
University of the West of England
BRISTOL, UK
ISBN 978-3-031-13305-3 ISBN 978-3-031-13306-0 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13306-0
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A
cknowledgements
‘Art maps and Cities’ started as a personal journey motivated by my curi-
osity in exploring new subjects, but the guidance and encouragement that
I received from many people along the way made a decisive contribution
to its completion.
This book is based on a doctoral thesis, and I owe special thanks to my
supervisors Marco Iuliano and Les Roberts, for their support throughout
my time at the University of Liverpool, being always receptive to new
ideas and debates. Thanks are also expressed to examiners Simon Pepper
and Luci Nuti, who gave me invaluable feedback and inspiring comments
that enabled me to have confidence in my work.
I am in debt with the artists who gracefully received me in their studios
and offices, making time to engage in long conversations: Layla Curtis,
Ben Johnson, Ruth Levene, Christian Nold, Inge Panneels, Matthew
Picton, Jeffrey Sarmiento and Stephen Walter. They generously shared
their knowledge, experience and original thoughts and also allowed image
reproduction of their artworks. Without them this book would not be
possible.
I have written large parts of this book while researching in libraries and
public archives. I am grateful to the library staff at the University of
Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores University and Manchester
Metropolitan University for their assistance, and especially to Ludovik
Sebire at the University of the West of England: in thanking him I want to
extend my gratitude to all librarians. I also reserve special thanks to the
staff at Liverpool Record Office, who kindly granted permission to repro-
duce images of their map collection.
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I thank my academic colleagues who contributed with time and energy
on listening and reflecting upon my writings, in particular Matthew Brown
and Richard Mourne for their patient readings and inestimable help in
revising drafts of this book.
Finally, I want to thank the hospitality of the people I have encountered
in Liverpool, with whom I have learnt to connect with this city from
the ground.
c
ontents
1 Introduction 1
2 Urban Art Maps in Cultural Context 15
3 Seeing, Representing, Performing 41
4 A History of Art Maps and Mappings 85
5 Contemporary Artists Mapping Cities 111
6 Liverpool: A City in Maps 143
7 Placing/Performing the Map 187
Bibliography 195
Index 205
vii
l f
ist of igures
Fig. 5.1 The Thames (from London Bridge, Arizona, to Sheerness,
Canada) (detail). Layla Curtis, 2013 118
Fig. 5.2 NewcastleGateshead (detail). Layla Curtis, 2005 119
Fig. 5.3 Edinburgh Index Drawing (detail). Layla Curtis, 2012 120
Fig. 5.4 As Far As The Eye Can See (frame 1/6). Ruth Levene, 2008 121
Fig. 5.5 Map Collection. Ruth Levene, 2008 121
Fig. 5.6 Stockport Emotion Map. Christian Nold, 2007. The columns
mark the points of emotional arousal; taller columns indicate
more intense arousals. The drawings and texts help to qualify
the experiences of people on the ground, such as ‘feeling a bit
uncomfortable here’ or ‘I can smell and hear the market’s
atmosphere’ 124
Fig. 5.7 Jerusalem. Map (left) and detail (right). Matthew Picton, 2011 125
Fig. 5.8 Lower Manhattan (detail). Matthew Picton, 2011 126
Fig. 6.1 Liverpool as would be in 1572 (above), from an unknown
author, and in 1680 as depicted in John Eyes’ engraving
from 1736, based on the ‘Peters painting’ (below). Source:
Liverpool Record Office 146
Fig. 6.2 James Chadwick’s Street Plan of 1725. Source: Liverpool
Record Office 147
Fig. 6.3 View of Liverpool from the Mersey. Rudolph Ackermann,
1847. Source Liverpool Record Office 149
Fig. 6.4 Map of the borough of Liverpool with the parliamentary
boundaries, ecclesiastical divisions and a part of the Cheshire
Coast: Hilliar’s Guide for strangers and visitors through
Liverpool, 1858. Source: Liverpool Record Office 151
ix
x LIST OF FIGURES
Fig. 6.5 The urban mosaic: the map shows Liverpool city centre dived
into areas that are framed around major urban regeneration
projects and key buildings and institutions. The ‘Main Retail
Area’ corresponds to Liverpool One; the ‘Creative Quarter
comprises Ropewalks and Baltic Triangle; the ‘Cultural
Quarter’ contains the two cathedrals and a series of cultural
venues, such as the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts,
the Royal Philharmonic and the Everyman Theatre; and the
‘Knowledge Quarter’ includes University of Liverpool and
Liverpool John Moores University campuses. Source: Liverpool
City Centre Strategic Investment Framework, 2012. (Liverpool
Record Office) 155
Fig. 6.6 The Liverpool Cityscape by Ben Johnson. Acrylic on canvas
488 x 244 cm 156
Fig. 6.7 Liverpool 2008–09 by Stephen Walter. Inkjet print on paper
105 x 112 cm 159
Fig. 6.8 The Liverpool Map by Inge Panneels and Jeffrey Sarmiento, as
exhibited in the Museum of Liverpool 160
Fig. 6.9 Liverpool Cityscape—the Billy Fury statue (detail) 171
Fig. 6.10 Liverpool 2008–09. Detail showing the map’s legend: going
beyond the usual cartographic information 176
Fig. 6.11 Liverpool 2008–09. Detail of the north fringe of the city 177
Fig. 6.12 Liverpool 2008–09. Detail of the central area of the city 177
Fig. 6.13 Map of Liverpool. Detail of two of the many printed images
generated from ink drawings. Photo: Inge Panneels/Jeffrey
Sarmiento 179
Fig. 6.14 Map of Liverpool. The boundaries underneath the map: the
outer red line was suggested by Phil Redmond. On the right
detail of the layer containing the iconic places of Liverpool.
Photo: Inge Panneels/Jeffrey Sarmiento 183
Fig. 6.15 Map of Liverpool. The community layer of people’s writings
superimposed on historical photographs (left) and the
assembly of four layers depicting musicians, artists, writers,
sports personalities and other people related to the cultural
scene in Liverpool (right). Photo: Inge Panneels/Jeffrey
Sarmiento 184
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
Cities are intrinsically connected with mapmaking. For as long as cities
have been established, humans have been finding ways to register their
morphology and location, annotating elements as physical landmarks or
urban life events. Throughout history, from the pre-historic rock engrav-
ings of the first settlements to the intricate printings of the Renaissance
and the current hyperreal digital visualisations, city maps have been pro-
duced as repositories of human knowledge, and mapmaking has become
an authoritative tool to understand, plan and design new cities and new
urban lifestyles.
The latest chapter of this long history started sometime between the
1910s and 1920s, when some artists removed maps from the usual reposi-
tories, such as scholarly books and atlases, and playfully started to experi-
ment with them as art subjects. This was a humble beginning for what
would follow, yet it was a remarkable event, even more so because in the
preceding nineteenth century cartography was instituted as the major dis-
cipline of all things related to maps and mapmaking. Cities then, reaching
increasing levels of densification and sub-urbanisation, were mapped
under the rules of accurate surveying methods. This map production was
strongly associated with another new discipline of the time: city planning.
Fast forward to the 1960s, considerable debate, followed by critical prac-
tices, was directed to the dogmas of both disciplines of cartography and
planning, through the emergence of movements such as ‘counter-
cartography’ and ‘New Urbanism’. Artists, again, were ahead of their
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1
Switzerland AG 2022
G. Lanci, Art Maps and Cities,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13306-0_1