London West, UK - 'Found art is an extension of the found object. Found art applies to a series of prints I'm doing where I find a piece of ephemera, scan it and then print it out in ink jet, sometimes quite large. What that's saying is that something that is really mundane, that has no aesthetic sense, is nothing until I do this process with it. So that could be a cigarette packet or a matchbox or a piece of paper or a badge,' said Sir Peter Blake, a professional and inveterate life-long collector of junk and ephemera.

In the run-up to a selling exhibition of Peter Blake's print-making from 1950 to now, Nic McElhatton, chairman of Christie's South Kensington, interviews him in his London studio. Fine art might seem removed from architectural salvage, but a connection can be seen to exist through the public appreciation of 'found art' which he famously exploited in works such as the Beatles' Sergeant Pepper album.

When customers buy objects for their intrinsic aesthetic qualities rather than, or as well as, their usefulness, their 'found art' consciousness kicks in. The architectural trade can promote this through the ad hoc cabinet of curiousities which can be found in many of their salvage yards. Should a showroom and yard be well-organised to make things easier to find, or should it be more a 'cabinet of curiousities'-style of aesthetically pleasing jumble?

A slight disappointment of the Christie's selling exhibition is the sanitised way in which the prints of Peter Blake, have been laid out in this exhibition, rather than as an aesthetically pleasing jumble.

Christie's: Peter Blake 60 Years of Printmaking
Christie's: Nic McElhatton interviews Sir Peter Blake

Story Type:  News

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