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Artist designs giant crack to make wall of London building “more fun”

British artist Alex Chinneck has collaborated with steelworkers, engineers and brickmakers to create "Six Pins and Half a Dozen Needles", an artwork designed to look like a giant crack in the wall of a brick building in Hammersmith, west London.

Chinneck’s first permanent installation is located on a mixed-use campus called Assembly London. It references the site’s previous publishing house tenants by making the artwork resemble a ripped piece of paper.

The 20m long design weighs 10 tonnes, contains 4,000 bricks and over 1,000 stainless steel components; it took 14 months to complete.

Chinneck said: "The work was conceived to engage people in a fun and uplifting way. Although we use real brick, it was designed with a cartoon-like quality to give the sculpture an endearing artifice and playful personality.

"I set out to create accessible artworks and I sincerely hope this becomes a popular landmark for London and positive experience for Londoners."

Chinneck’s previous installations have included an upturned pylon and a wax house that was melted down.

Images courtesy of Charles Emerson

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Comments

  1. Totally ridiculous & a complete waste of money, designs like this belong in the Tate Modern, not out in the street!. It looks as it’s designed, a huge crack in a brick facade, ready for demolition! We need more modern buildings like the Shard etc. Not some monstrosity that looks as if it’s out of our industrial past & ripe for redevelopment!

  2. This is a highly unique way of “cracking” a joke! However, it may just give someone, at first glance. a tremendous fright ,especially on a day with thunder and lightning in the sky above them!

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