简介
When the world wants Big Art, it comes to Urban Art Projects, an art-making business founded by identical twins Daniel and Matthew Tobin. From humble beginnings casting bronze door handles, today they run a team who make some of the biggest art the world has ever seen. UAP’s team of designers, patternmakers, foundrymen and installers work with artists from around the world to create art that’s off the scale - and never before attempted. Everything is a prototype - so when the project is a 60 metre high sculptural lighthouse on a reclaimed slip of land in the Red Sea, or a building facade two footy fields long that moves in the wind, the stakes are very high indeed. For this is art - not only must it stand the rigours of its setting, it must also achieve the highest aesthetic goals. Clients want their artwork to achieve iconic status. Artists want to see their ideas realised to perfection. Just as each piece of art is unique, so is the journey to get there. It’s a struggle between vision and reality, beset by problems of every kind, yet at the end of the day, another giant piece of astonishing art graces the planet. UAP has to keep everyone happy AND turn a profit if they’re going to come back and do it all again. How do they do it? The secret lies in each member of the UAP team having their own passion for big art. It’s not just a job - it’s a calling. Kevin the foundryman pours intricate molten bronze artworks, but for the first twenty years of his career he was pouring manhole covers. Jason, the shop manager, oversees the complexity of UAP’s Northgate workshop at any one time, turning out dozens of individual pieces that must all achieve perfection. Jerko, the patternmaker, must become the hands of each artist he works with to translate their ideas and sketches to real materials. The staff engineers, such as Andre, must plug their minds into the arcane intricacies of wind tunnel testing and specular reflectivity. Lead designers, like Amanda, need to shepherd the artists vision through the whole process, Troy, the installer, must see the artwork into place without a single nut or bolt out of place. And as for Matt and Dan and senior design lead Jamie Perrow, the challenge is doubled as they run another entire team of designers and fabricators in Shanghai. Over this six part series we follow the UPA team from initial idea through to the challenges of working with various locations and materials, all while balancing the clients expectations, the budget and the artistic vision of each individual work. Using dramatic observational footage, reflective interviews, artist insight and extensive archive, we follow the conception, design, creation, installation, and stunning reveal of each amazing piece of Big Art.
