NO KING by Richard Tipping 10 October 2012 Art Almanac
NO KING is an exhibition of signs and photographs by Richard Tipping currently showing at ArtHere in Redfern, Sydney.
Tipping takes his imagery, text, and forms from classic Australian road signs. Playing with this familiarity, he cleverly flips the associated meanings of the words and symbols into direct and provocative statements that challenge hierarchal structures of English royalty. By doing this, he addresses public language of the street, and using unexpected poetic interventions, extends our experience of public space to new, metaphorical meanings.
The works engage us through many levels – as everyday objects with unexpected alterations, we can read the text with a personal perspective, or imagine it's implications on broader society when placed into the public domain, as it would be in it's original form.
In No King, Tipping has cleverly managed to make a witty, ironic, and amusing collection of work drawn from everyday experience, while also directly commenting on Australia's current political climate.
ArtHere Until October 27, Sydney
http://www.art-almanac.com.au/2012/10/no-king-by-richard-tipping/
New York Times Arts
ART IN REVIEW
by KEN JOHNSON Published: January 08, 1999
'Versions: Perversions, Subversions and Verse'
Ubu Gallery 16 East 78th Street Through Jan. 16
Richard Tipping, an artist and poet from Australia, operates along the blurry boundaries between the verbal and the visual, creating amusing, sometimes illuminating works of concrete poetry. In this extensive selection of works from three decades, words are embodied in stone, molded glass, carved wood and found objects.
Some pieces are primarily typographical compositions, like a wooden bowl bearing a circle of carved, gilded letters spelling ''Hear the art,'' a phrase in which the words ''heart,'' ''earth'' and ''hearth'' are embedded. But Mr. Tipping's most effective device is to alter familiar types of signs. A hexagonal red stop sign says ''Go.'' Standard black-and-white one-way traffic signs turn out on closer examination to read ''one day.'' A square white sign displays a red circle above the word ''ozone,'' a mysteriously ambiguous warning.
Mr. Tipping also ingeniously manipulates familiar commercial signs, as in a re-creation of an old Kentucky Fried Chicken poster in which he substitutes the image of Sigmund Freud for Colonel Sanders and adds a profane, Oedipally suggestive slogan. Such creations may be more clever than profound, but at best Mr. Tipping's wordplay sneakily interrupts our everyday habits of perception and cognition to mentally tonic effect.
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/08/arts/art-in-review-777781.html
NO KING
Posted by Andrew Frost • September 28, 2012
The Art Life
On the stairwell wall of the art school's library there was a framed work on paper that simply read AIRPOET. Executed in the manner of a street sign it has plagued me for decades - to this day I still think airpoet when I'm on my way to Mascot. Such is the work of artist-poet Richard Tipping whose witty, punning and visually impactful word art signs is a vital link in the small history that is Australian text art.
Tipping's latest exhibition - and his third in 12 months - No King: Signs & Photographs by Richard Tipping continues the artist-poet's trademark détournement of street signage, this time collected around the theme of the Australian Republic such as NO KING, Thank You and featuring older works including REDUCE NEED and WRONG DAY GO BACK.
September 29 - October 20 Arthere Photomedia Space, Redfern.
Pic: Richard Tipping, Reduce Need, 2012. Courtesy the artist and Arthere Photomedia Space.
http://theartlife.com.au/?p=7112
GO by Richard Tipping 1998. Pressed- aluminium sign, first issued 1999.
No King © Richard Tipping 2012
One Day 1998 © Richard Tipping Manipulated sign, issued as a small pressed-aluminium sign in 1999. Out of print.
(c) Richard Tipping All text and images are copyright and protected by international legislation. See the Copyright page for more information. For permission to use any of these materials please see Contact page