Mike Cooter

Guidance 1 (Sigurd Lewerentz) and Guidance 2 (Sigurd Lewerentz), hand-painted steel, 2018

Guidance 1 and 2 are re-fabrications of bespoke handrails designed by the Swedish architect Sigurd Lewerentz for the chapels of St Knut and St Gertrude in the Östra kyrkogården / Eastern Cemetery in Malmö (completed in 1943).

Originally produced for the exhibition The Mimic, the Model and the Dupe (New Walk, Leicester, 2018) and in part re-fabricated using machinery in the Industrial History collection of the host institution, the two works have been exhibited subsequently in both gallery and public realm contexts. Through recontextualization (from specific architectural site to gallery or public plaza) these works deliberately exploit an ambiguous position between architectural support and formal sculptural object, rearticulating the original bespoke functionality of the design process whilst foregrounding the formal elegance of a line drawing (and hence proposed choreography of bodies) in physical space. Guidance 1 and 2 form part of a series of works and exhibition strategies that draw attention towards the physical and ideological constructs that constitute ‘guidance’ in both exhibition and public space. This ‘ambiguity of function’ delineates the boundaries and supports that frame public life.