Car Park Art

Contemporary art spans many different and delightful forms. The traditional media such as oil paintings and bronze sculptures still hold their own against more recently developed approaches that use digital media or performance art to create works that are now shaping our modern lives. Therefore the only true concern of art in the twenty-first century is not the 'how' but the 'what'. And that 'what' is the focus of this week's blog.

If you take Picasso's premise that, 'art is a lie that enables us to realise the truth' then we can only truly understand the world through the prism of art. Sadly not everything is considered art, or given the focus by artists. Therefore in order for humanity to survive and prosper it is our duty to turn everything into art and every artist's duty is to do this. I already consider myself and my life as a work of art as outlined in my blog Life is Art. Art is Life. I am Art. Art am I, but I am a trivial irrelevance in the great scheme of things - car parks are not.

If I may modestly quote from my own blog Life is ...a car parking space (one of a number I have contributed on this important subject),

"The car parking space enables society to function, it enables life to happen - it is by proxy the arbiter of your mood, the barometer against which you measure whether you have had a good day, the enabler of activity (or frustrater). It is the lungs of enterprise, the heart of capitalism, the place of that first kiss, the conception of the first child (or fourth child in Ron Howard's case) and ... in dental hygiene."

It is not to overstate the case that the very survival of the human race is dependent upon the creation of more car park art. Only then will society really see itself for what it is and appreciate this most omnipresent of modern architectural phenomena. A new understanding will emerge, one that embraces the lie of the internal combustion engine and its incestuous relationship with the ubiquitous oblong of space. We can only 'realise the truth' of this if art recognises inherent lie that is the car parking space.

I recently discovered a blog post called 'Other Car Park Art' (at http://friarsgate.wordpress.com/2010/02/13/other-car-park-art/) that shows I am not alone in this view. It features art that is based within the car park's oblong environment. The next stage is art independent of the rectangular locus but inspired by, and conveying the inherent truth of, the subject. This is my call to arms for artists everywhere to take up the challenge to populate our modern galleries with 'the truth'. It should be easy - most paintings are rectangles as are most car parking spaces - that is surely no coincidence.

My dream, is that 10 years from now the ten most famous artworks will not be 

• Mona Lisa,
• Starry Night,
• The Last Supper,
• The Sistine Chapel ceiling's Birth of Adam.
• Guernica,
• Girl with the Pearl Earring,
• The Scream,
• Night Watch,
• Water Lilies, and
• The Birth of Venus

but

• Moaning Liza, lipstick on the rear view mirror, an early Renaissance style painting of an enigmatically smiling lady who got the last 'women only' parking space in a Japanese car park see blog Car Parking is a Gender Issue
• Staying All Night, oil on concrete, an abstract of someone getting great value on car park overnight rates
• The Lost Slipper, pen and ink on windscreen, Pre Raphaelite study of the crucial point in the fairytale when Cinderella's pumpkin gets a ticket in a 30 minutes only parking space
• The Ticket Booth's Purse of Ada, pastels in glove compartment, a post impressionistic view of a single object handed in to the security office found on the car park ticket machine
• Milton Keynes, gouache and coloured pencil on lavatory wall, a meditation on the destruction of a whole city through the excessive creation of car parks 
• Girl with the Pearlescent SsangYong, oil stains on hubcap, Fauvist celebration of female asian motoring in a field set aside for the annual Korean mud festival
• The Screaming, salt and watercolour in the petrol tank, a post impressionist breakdown in a residents' only car space
• Night Watchmen, water soluble ink pen in Nuts magazine, constructivist view of the night shift in a 24 hour staffed car park
• Walter's Lilies, watercolour on back seat, impressionist view of a forgotten piece offering gift to a neglected wife in a multi-storey car park
• The Birth of Vera, acrylic on bed sheet, De Stijl abstract of of an incident in the local hospital car park

Artists its now up to you. Make that dream come true

England's Green and Pleasant Car Park

I am conscious I have been neglecting our car parking heritage lately. I note there was not a single mention of car parking  heritage at the Museums Association Conference. However, yesterday I was privileged to place my modest limousine in a car parking slot that is proof of Oliver Cromwell's assertion that 'God is an Englishman'. 

Suitably organic, lacking the geometric precision of other European spaces, and placed in a suitably bucolic setting. Just drink in its beauty, feel the sun on your face and bask in the distant memory of summer and thank heavens you are part of 'this happy breed of men [in] this little world'. 

 

And did those cars in ancient time 

Drive upon England's roadways green? 

And was the holy park for cars 

On England's pleasant pastures seen? 

"I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves"

The title is a quote from Ludwig Wittgenstein*. I was looking for a phrase that had a suitably upbeat quality as I contemplated yet another car park and happy-go-lucky Ludwig came up trumps.

Examine the scene. Your eye is drawn down the disorientating white lines** towards the solitary individual surrounded and dominated by inanimate and uncaring vehicles. A scene of despair and inconsequentiality in an uncaring (and possibly hostile world) or as we know it, Tescos. And in the end, we all die etc. etc.

The person who sent me the photo commented, "The guy in this photo is totally isolated against the landscape of cars, which I thought was humorous but also a bit scary..maybe a bit of a metaphor for how I felt. Everything here seems too large and unnecessary .."

Other than my stomach, which is too large and unnecessary, I didn't find this photo humorous, scary or depressing. Those who read my blog regularly will know (and possibly be slightly concerned about) my enthusiasm for car parking spaces and their uniqueness. As I reflected over a period of days I came to realise that inherent in this picture is the meaning of life.

In order to explain, lets go back to your childhood. A place of mystery and wonder where we react in an emotional way to the world around us. We simply experience life. Then we go to school, college, university (or borstal - in my case - a simple misunderstanding that got out of hand), gaol etc. We learn how things work and why things happen but in separate disciplines - physics, chemistry, history, geography, divinity (religious instruction) - I went to  a posh school, at least until I was expelled - yet another misunderstanding. We learn to separate, to specialise -to find reason, to find meaning in detailed knowledge. In the heritage world we have specialist curators, alas increasingly rare due to cutbacks, but somehow apt to have rare people looking after rare things rarely.

Thus we leave our education system knowing lots about bits, but with little or no ability to work out how it all fits together, but with the constant search for understanding. Surely this is a sure fire guarantee of societal existential angst, depression, suicide and death amongst the populace (how else do you explain the popularity of Strictly Come Dancing?) We may as well hand out a tanto*** with each degree certificate.

We are always striving to find meaning and museums are amongst the worst culprits. Yet it can be found in a car park by its very meaningless. Take the Buddhist concept of 'Emptiness' - stop the ceaseless search for the meaning of life by just simply experiencing life and therefore find meaning in the meaningless. For example, you can only 'know' the meaning of love if you are in love - you know its meaning by experiencing it. I try and apply that to museums. Museums too often try to educate and offer knowledge thereby failing in their duty to give meaning. The most telling comment in Judith Henry's excellent 'Overheard at the Museum' book is, "This forces you to think and I don't really like to do that." I can sympathise with that viewpoint. At least you can come to the Museum of Unreason and not think and find meaninglessness AND therefore the secret of life itself (I should put that on our advertising leaflets).

And so back to our picture. Here is a moment of wonder, you are experiencing a precious one-off event -yet your thoughts jump into the routine drudgery of life, the size of the cars, the angle of the lines etc. And so you fail to see the brilliance of what is going on. We try and find meaning and the very act of trying means we fail. Don't think! And find the very act of not thinking a liberating life affirming experience. How many museums offer that? Yet every car parking space does offer that, because it is not there to encourage you to think. An empty car parking space is the Buddhist concept of 'Emptiness' in physical form - it is Nirvana, it is a Christian Heaven (a full car park being Hell obviously).

Next time you go into a parking space, stop for 10 seconds and revel in the wondrousness of the experience. I will guarantee the weekly shop will be much more bearable because of it.

Here endeth the lesson - next week pictures of cats with funny expressions on their faces.

*Three of Wittgenstein's brothers committed suicide and he himself contemplated it. Yet he was the most important philosopher of the 20th Century according to Bertrand Russell - personally I think I would rather be happy.
**I like to think the white lines are spaces for trandems, but I suspect not
***tanto - ceremonial sword for committing seppuku

Car Parks - the workhouses of our time?

I am aware that I am ahead of my time in my appreciation of car parks and the thousands of beautiful spaces they contain. I have been mocked in the street for it; told to move along by uniformed personnel when admiring well crafted spaces in multi-storey parks. Yet I will live to see the first car parking space museum. I will tell you why.

A beautiful space with multi-coloured
block paving
(Photo courtesy of the
Museum of Car Parking Spaces)

Bill Bryson, the well meaning but easily pleased American, wrote a book in 1995 called Notes from a Small Island. It was an amusing journey around this country that was on the whole positive. He ends on a strangely untypical effusive note,

"I realised what it was I loved about Britain - which is to say, all of it...What a wondrous place this was - crazy as f!@k, of course, but adorable to the tiniest degree...this is still the best place in the world...."

He lies of course. In fact he condemns himself from his own mouth (or pen) on p.64 (Black Swan 1997 paperback edition). I have edited down the two page rant.

"Just consider the average multi-storey car park. You drive around for ages, and the spend a small eternity shunting into a space that is exactly two inches wider than the average car [3 inches too wide in my opinion]. Then, because you are parked next to a pillar, you have to climb over the seats and end up squeezing butt-first out of the passenger door....you have to find your way out of this dank hellhole via an unmarked door leading to a curious chamber that seems to be a composite of a dungeon and a urinal...all of this is designed to make this the most dispiriting experience of your adult life."

Yet he moans (p.103).

"..the British have more heritage than is good for them."

Wrong! We have too much PRETTY heritage, do we need 12,000 medieval churches? How about 11,999 medieval churches and 1 multi-storey car park?

Let's compare car parks with workhouses. It was a phenomenon that spread across the country after the 1601 Poor Law Act; had it's architectural heyday in the Nineteenth Century, before being abolished in 1930.

Here's an extract from George Eliot's, Scenes of Clerical Life (1854),

"...the workhouse, euphemistically called the 'College'. The 'College' was a huge square stone building, standing on the best apology for an elevation of ground....depressing enough to look at even on the brightest days."

She wasn't alone, Charles Dickens was no big fan (Oliver Twist cannot be described as a comedy). The word 'squalid' turns up frequently in his writing. In his 'A Walk in a Workhouse' (1850) he compares the workhouse unfavourably to prison.

"We have come to this absurd, this dangerous, this monstrous pass, that the dishonest felon is, in respect of cleanliness, order, diet, and accommodation, better provided for, and taken care of, than the honest pauper."

So why compare the multi-storey car park to the workhouse? Both are/were full of squalor and misery. BUT one is now 'heritage' and the other is an eyesore of no value beyond mere utility.

Today you can go to the National Trust owned Southwell Workhouse museum for a 'family fun day out'. It was built in 1824 and opened less than 100 years later as a heritage site. The first multi-storey car park was built in Chicago U.S.A. in 1918. Wouldn't it be great to celebrate its 100th anniversary with a car park museum (preferably built over a medieval building).

Time is running out - get behind my campaign now.

Car Parking is a Gender Issue

My apologies for the delayed blog. I have endured another period of 'gardening leave' following a misunderstanding when the Chair of the friends group handed me a wad of cash saying, "Here is a fundraising donation for you." I was touched by the regard with which I am held in the organisation and immediately bought myself a new set of golf clubs. At the subsequent disciplinary hearing I convincingly argued it was a genuine misunderstanding - that 'you' has a very different meaning  from 'your museum'. As a precaution I enlisted the help of my Russian mafia girlfriend to construct a 'convincing' argument (by way of thanks I paid her from a couple of spare coins out of the numismatic collection).

Anyway after a month of leave I'm back at work and my handicap is down to 18.

Now to the main point of the blog - women only car parking spaces. 

My research has yet to discover the world's first car parking space (my money is on the USA), but I have discovered the rise of women only car parking spaces. Disabled spaces and parent/child spaces are commonplace in the UK but I have yet to see a 'women only' space. It seems that in some German states 10% of spaces must be designated for women. These are near entrances, security guards etc. This makes sense in terms of safety, although statistically a woman is in more danger in her home and only 1 in a thousand crimes in car parks are sexual assaults. But it seems a progressive move and if we can get that figure for sexual assaults down to 0 in a thousand then they will be worthwhile.

Another country blessed with this foresight is China. Although rather than having a sign, it seems they have gone for wider spaces in different colours for women. They have taken to heart the statistic that women cause twice as many collisions in car parks as men, rather than that of violence inflicted on women in public places. So this appears to be a safety measure for men rather than women. 

However it is Korea that seems to be the true home of the women only car parking space. The Seoul city authorities have painted 4,929 spaces pink with the thinking that women in high heels should not have to walk as far to their destination. So car parking is a fashion issue in Korea. Perhaps they could develop this initiative by having minimum heel sizes closer to entrances. Perhaps having the highest heel spaces closest to a first aid station.

Quite what this all says about the difference between Chinese, Korean and German societies I'm not sure - but I applaud the idea as both a safety and fashion issue.

What would a 'men only' space look like? My guess is it would have a minimum parking speed and be exactly 1 inch thinner than the average car width. But wait! It seems the German town of Triberg has already introduced the first men only spaces, which are apparently much more difficult to manoeuvre into than 'normal' spaces. As a man I'm up for that challenge!

So imagine a future with car parks containing multi coloured spaces in different shapes and sizes with different footwear regulations.

 That is a world I would want to live in.

Please send me photos of any car parking spaces worth preserving for posterity at museumofunreason@gmail.com

Christmas is a time to think of car parking

I usually blog about the absurdity of museums, but at this time of year my thoughts (as well as those of millions of others in the western world) turn to car parking.
Admittedly I am constantly thinking about car parking spaces, but in a campaigning sense. I will not rest until the first real museum of car parking spaces is created. But in a world that lacks car parking space museums car parking is in need of cloudy thinking.
Christmas shopping is a time of good will towards all men, except in the shopping centre car parks when some sort of atavistic free for all exists. This is not because we become bad people but because car parking spaces do not reflect the different needs and character of the human Christmas shopping population.
Planners acknowledge people with disabilities and parents with young children by giving them their own spaces but what about everybody else? The vast majority of us. It would be too painful to deliberately disable ourselves and too criminal to kidnap young children. So what do we do? Here is my suggestion for car park planners across the globe.

• Keep disabled spaces
• Keep parent and child spaces 
• Add parent with parent spaces - for those of us taking aged mother out for her annual shop who then makes you carry around 12 months worth of shopping for the next 4 hours. 
• Add aged parent spaces - for the fiercely independent octogenarian, extra wide spaces with large numbering on posts as far away from everyone else as possible
• Add 'I've forgotten something and just need to pop back for 10 minutes and don't want to spend half an hour finding a space' space. Each with its own warden equipped with a stopwatch.
• Add  slimmer expert parking spaces nearer the shops for regular users and wider novice parking spaces near the aged parent spaces to prevent delays waiting for slow parkers
• Flashing spaces for people who can never find their car
• Males left in car listening to the football spaces - two lots colour coded spaces on opposite sides of the car park to keep fans apart with adjoining pie refreshment cabins
• Childless couple spaces - areas of calm away from crying children where couples can bicker in peace
• Singleton spaces - a chance to meet your future partner in mistletoe shaped spaces
• Reserved spaces that you earn by collecting frequent parker tokens

The result - car parking harmony full of yuletide spirit

Merry Christmas everyone

Justin Bieber Car Crash - Heritage Implications

Some of you may be aware that the "teenage pop sensation" Justin Beiber has been in the news lately having survived a car crash in a Ferrari. There was some initial speculation that he was critically injured or worse still, dead. But it seems all parties involved were unhurt and that can only be a good thing.

I've not heard any of Beiber's music personally but nothing can be so bad as to wish ill fortune upon a person (with the possible exception of Jedward). However I digress.

Closer investigation of this sensational story reveals that the Ferrari and a Honda Civic bumped in a car park the result of which according to the police, "Neither cars suffered any visible damage." So, you may think, its just some news creation by the media pandering to our need for a celebrity culture fix. In which case you miss the point entirely.

What is upsetting is the total lack of coverage for the car parking space involved. As a passionate, ok obsessive, promoter of car parking space heritage - the wanton lack of interest in the location of the incident is indecent. The only description of the location I could find was, 'underground parking structure.' This sounds a glamorous and dangerously sexy car park. So a pop star, a car crash and a sexy car park is the ideal opportunity to promote the importance of car parking heritage. As it is in the USA it should be made a national park NOW. A whole new sub category of 'national car park' could be created in the wake of this.

I realise I may be ahead of public opinion in this matter, but if you ignore me just think ahead. When the oil runs out and cars are consigned to history and boring stories told by grandfathers, car parks will pulled down, destroyed and built over in their thousands without a murmur of protest. You have been warned. So start the 'Save the Bieber space' campaign now. Sign up and make a difference.

Income Generation and Car Parking Museums

Recent figures showing that car parks generate tens of millions of ££s for local councils. E.G.

Norfolk and Waveney councils receive £11m in parking charges

see http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/news/norfolk_and_waveney_councils_receive_11m_in_parking_charges_1_1007197

It appears that only a fraction of this income is spent on the maintenance of the car parks.

The Museum of Unreason therefore proposes that every council renames each one as 'The [insert name here] Car Park Museum'. The income will then go into the cultural budget and subsidise the non-profit making museums owned by the councils. ERGO there will never be any need to close a public museum ever again. Simple.

Car Park for Jewish Worshippers Planned on Palestinian Land in East Jerusalem

See my earlier blog 'It's All in the Name' - I had hoped car parking may be one way of bringing the communities together in this troubled part of the world. Alas, and with a heavy heart I am proved wrong.

Once completed I will unofficially name it 'The Car Park of Tolerance''

More details are available here.

http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/topics/jerusalem/3783-car-park-for-jewish-worshippers-planned-on-palestinian-land-in-east-jerusalem-

Museum of Car Parking Spaces

A complete lack of demand should never get in the way of creating a new museum. The world needs more museums. Lets get together and create the Museum of Car Parking Spaces. Please visit the museum and submit your favourite car parking spaces and develop a world collection. They can be unusual ones, favourite ones, ones typical of an area - or any use of space by a car. This will enable us to build up a rare and beautiful collection of the world's hidden heritage.
https://sites.google.com/site/​museumofcarparkingspaces

Its All in the Name

Voice of America News July 13, 2011

Israel Approves Jerusalem Museum of Tolerance Project Despite Muslim Objections

Muslims groups have objected to the Museum of Tolerance being built on an ancient burial site. Is it the covering of the site, or the museum that’s the problem? Apparently part of the site was built over by a car park without objections. So it must be the museum. Museums always have a tricky task of presenting the past in places of conflict, they can help the situation but can also make things worse. In this case it doesn’t appear to be bringing both sides together. Can cloudy thinking help?

Is it the name? Is ‘Tolerance’ part of the problem? I bet the Muslim community has a different name for it.  Companies change their names when there is a commercial imperative, so why not a museum? Instantly wipe away the baggage of years of unwanted history and start again? Cloudy thinking recommends a wholesale radical museum renaming programme.

But, firstly lets fix the Arab/Israeli conflict. If a car park is something both sides can accept. Ergo ‘The Car Park Museum’ solves the problem. It will also be a world first, something both sides can share equally (as long as spaces aren’t reserved) and be a celebration of togetherness. It may not end years of conflict, but in future academics may see this as the turning point, and really clever academics will invent ‘The Car Park Theory of Social Integration’ and make a fortune – but you heard it here first.

Cloudy thinking suggests taking it one step further and make it a museum of car park spaces. Visitors will get to drive their car over a museum artifact. What museum visitor doesn’t secretly want to do this? Or any museum curator for that matter. OK, so there may be a few access versus conservation issues but what museum doesn’t have those?

In gentle old Blighty can the same strategy be applied? The V&A took tentative steps towards this a few years ago with their advert ‘An Ace Caff With Quite A Nice Museum Attached’. Should they have gone further and actually changed the name of the museum to that as well? In these times of commercial imperitves its an even better name now.

Visit the UK’s premier national museum, the British Museum. Go inside and you’ll struggle to find anything British. It is a world museum so why not call it that? However, this may lead to more requests from countries to have their stuff back appropriated in the days of Empire. If this conflict can’t be avoided address it head on – rename it ‘The Museum of Stuff That is Ours Now’. The Museum of Unreason realizes this is not a snappy title but seems to confront a pressing issue for all museums with world collections. Surely it will stop countries unreasonably asking for their stuff back, but it may actually increase conflict.

Cloudy thinking recommends the reduction of conflict rather than the opposite. So can this diaspora of collections around the world be condensed into an abstract noun? How about the ‘Museums of Tolerance’? That might work, but if not, they can always start building car parks.

Health Warning

If you take any of the views expressed in this blog seriously then you should really think about changing your name as well.