Ben Long's brilliant blurred billboards on show in Birmingham

Date
13 April 2012

Birmingham is a city that has had its share of bad press – enduring decades as the lazy punchline of a sneering Jeremy Clarkson style joke. But anyone lucky enough to have experienced Britain’s second city knows that recent years have witnessed a Renaissance in the Venice of the Midlands (it’s do with canals).

Another artistic string to the Brummie bow has come courtesy of the EC Arts 48 Sheet project which is inviting artists to take over 100 billboards across the city throughout April, creating an unusual al fresco urban art gallery. Pick of the work comes from the brilliant Ben Long, whose blurred digital prints not only wrong-foot passing motorists but also explores the idea of images losing their potency through ubiquitous representation.

“These artworks could be taken simply as a subversion of representational art because they appear to disrupt the traditional values of painting and present abstraction as high octane thrill-seeking,” Ben says.

“But I also think there is a cautionary meaning in there too, which is to do with how the historic can be manipulated and used as a commodity, and how we have become over-saturated with paintings by artists such as Constable to the point that we are no longer able to see them clearly. The Hay Wain is a perfect example of that because it appears on greetings cards and biscuit tins – my Nanna even has Constable place mats that she brings out when guests come to dinner! Rarely are we afforded a direct and pure experience of art. The reproduction is how we’re constantly receiving information and in a commercial world the meaning and original intention of these artworks become subtly distorted given enough time."

Above

Ben Long: Moving Landscapes – Dedham Lock and Mill & The Stour Valley (after John Constable)

Above

Ben Long: Moving Landscapes – Dedham Lock and Mill & The Stour Valley (after John Constable) (detail)

Above

Work by Steve Parsons and Lawrence Roper (Pic by Leah Carless)

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About the Author

Rob Alderson

Rob joined It’s Nice That as Online Editor in July 2011 before becoming Editor-in-Chief and working across all editorial projects including itsnicethat.com, Printed Pages, Here and Nicer Tuesdays. Rob left It’s Nice That in June 2015.

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