Leonor Antunes

Balfron tower (uncertainty and delight in the unknown), 2007

Antunes has developed a two-piece installation inspired by the Hungarian architect Ernö Goldfinger’s two mirrored skyscrapers – the Balfron and Trellick Towers, built in the context of 1960s social residential buildings in London. “In the first room, related to the Balfron Tower, I have suspended a sculpture made of brass. It is itself a repetition, in a reduced scale, of the pattern existent on the circulation tower of the Balfron … an ornamental object from a 1960s domestic interior. On the walls of the gallery, nails of brass and elastic threads of the same color represent, to scale, the outlines of the windows inside the Balfron that give on to the circulation Tower’s entrance. The paper makes reference to the floor tiles at the Balfron. The lighting in the exhibition space is from a fourth sculpture; a replica of a wall lamp designed in the late 1960s. As an artist, I am interested in the production of duplicates and their absurd derivation. I am interested in contexts, in living environments, as a utopian decade on its range of change. I am interested in systems such as urbanism and architecture, which determine our lives.” (L. A.)