POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

Manipulated road signs

Object No. 2005/235/2

This Richard Tipping street signs relate to the city landscape, advertising and the urban environment. The artist Richard Tipping is known as a 'visual poet', he describes his work as 'concrete poetry', or poetry which appreciates words and even letters for the way they look, their aesthetic appeal as art objects. This is a unique commentary on Australian signage and public space. These manipulated road signs are a continuing theme in Tipping's visual punning and urban commentary. These otherwise standard street signs completely alter the space they occupy, by physically altering existing signage and by inventing new signage using the standard design format as a template fresh meanings can be generated through these signs. Richard Tipping's work is an Australian example of the European concrete poetry movement which appeared in the 1950s, with e.e.cummings. These signs combined with Tipping's 'Multiple pleasures' postcards, silkscreen prints and black and white photographs are an Australian link with an international movement. Richard Tipping has since the 1960s and 70s documented, manipulated and commented on street signage and advertising in the Australian landscape. This is a continuing theme in Tipping's art, in the early 1970s his work was a commentary on signage in around Australia with photographs of humorous signs in situ. In the late 1970s and 1980 Tipping started to manipulate the roadsigns themselves. Since the late 1980s Tipping has been making neon signs, where timing switches have allowed a shift in meaning, as words are lit within words. His work has been displayed over freeways, outside the Art Gallery of New South Wales and in the spaces of the Seymour theatre. Richard Tipping is still exploring the ownership of public spaces in the urban environment. Anni Turnbull, Curator 2005