Tim Noble & Sue Webster’s Forever; the story behind the artwork
The collaborative art duo of Tim Noble and Sue Webster first came together at Nottingham Polytechnic, where both were studying Fine Arts, in the late 1980s.
Best known for their sculptural installations, their work was included in the 2009 Venice Biennale, and can be found among the collections of the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the National Portrait Gallery in London. An evolution of one of the first light sculptures made by the artists, Forever, features in our current outdoor exhibition, Winter Light.
To celebrate the work’s inclusion, we caught up with Tim Noble to find out more about its origins, about working with light, and to find out where they’d place their ideal London sculptural installation.
Tim Noble on what inspired Forever…
‘Forever, essentially, is a signage piece made from clusters of illuminated light bulbs with fairground reflectors.
‘Sue and I lived in Nottingham, where once a year the Goose Fair would occupy a large expanse of land on the outskirts of town. We were fascinated by the fairground signs for the rides, whole signage pieces throbbing with pulsating light movements. We would strike up conversations with the fairground owners on the rides and they would give us source information on what components to buy, and where to buy them from.
‘Typically the fairground light signage pieces in Britain were metal shapes with sides filled with light bulbs with screw on reflectors which gave the lights colour and added special star spangled effects around the edges, with a concentrated brighter spot in the centre, usually with names like UFO’s.
‘These types of signage were synonymous with British culture and seaside resorts, places like Blackpool and Brighton. Something most of us grew up with; signs of hope to get you through the long dismal winters of grey and rain.’
‘The top deck of the bus got the full impact of the piece, yet it was always left open to suggestion as to why it was there’
On how the piece originated…
‘Forever initially began as a light piece we hand made, wired and sequenced, and positioned on the roof of a bus stop. We removed the bus stop glass where the advertising posters were supposed to be and graffitied our names on the inside of the glass like a signature or tag. The glass would fill up with other people’s tags or signatures, all claiming their right to Forever, and the bus company’s cleaners would remove it all once a week leaving just our names on the inside; each week it perpetuated.
‘The top deck of the bus got the full impact of the piece, yet it was always left open to suggestion as to why it was there; time and eternity, eternity and time stretched out and open-ended.’
On the work’s location within Winter Light…
‘The South Bank is an intriguing place to position a light piece. I always loved the location being next to the Thames, the architecture has a peculiarity about it, a brutal concrete space. You see the cast grain of the wooden slats used to make the staircase inside.
‘There are odd spaces in and around the Southbank Centre buildings and in many ways I would have liked to take on a number of spaces on the outside rather than focus on one given spot. The building is never viewed as one area with one group of people, but many different parts with circulating individuals.
‘Having said that, the site for Forever works fantastically well as the piece is contained, and thrusts its energy outward. In this time of a selfie culture people take their own portraits in front of the piece, mirroring the early bus stop piece where the audience would claim it as their own experience.’
On what drew the artists to work with light…
‘We were initially attracted to these illuminated pieces like they were our weapons, both highly seductive and irritating at the same time. The intensity of the pulsating lights is something you don’t expect to see close up, especially in a contemplative gallery setting. We enjoyed the light reflecting on other people’s work and how it burnt the retinas and claimed its own territory, and so it’s a paradox to view this piece as simply an entertaining light piece, pretty and nice, or is it pretty nasty?’
‘We were initially attracted to these illuminated pieces like they were our weapons, both highly seductive and irritating at the same time’
And if they could place a work anywhere in London…
‘London is full of potential anti monuments, I always imagine placing something on one of those buoys that floats in the Thames outside of Tate Modern. We were working on a singular blood drop of light that seemingly drips from the top of a tall building down the side to a splash at the bottom. We proposed it to drip down the side of the Tate Modern’s tower but logistically it was never going to happen.’