Nick Mangan's sculptures and articulated spaces
I recently spent three days in Los Angeles. It is a city I had not visited before but it is one that felt familiar, after all, our culture is suffused with all things American, particularly those perpetuated by the Hollywood entertainment machine. Having been pre-warned that you simply had to have a car to see any of Los Angeles, the car was booked and map in hand I was ready to hit theroad. Setting off from a La-La-land car rental office, map in hand and humming: 'LA is a great big freeway', I turned the corner and found myself on freeway 5 heading in the direction of the 101. I really had no understanding of the significance of freeways in Los Angeles but I quickly discovered that this superstructure was a dominant and pulsating life form, its concrete tentacles reaching out, over, under and through what remains a city without a centre. Los Angeles' sprawling cluster of districts has become the ultimate car Mecca and freeways dedicate themselves to helping youspend as much time as possible in super-sized air-conditioned SUVs. I could see pocket spaces of potential car-free moments between freeway exits and entrances but for whatever reason (perhaps driving on the wrong side of the road at ridiculous speed) it was impossible to reach those spaces. For three days I was trapped in the freeway matrix! It was here as I tried to find my exit that I started to think about Nick Mangan's work. I know it is a long way from Los Angeles to Melbourne and even further to Geelong but on the LA freeways I found myself considering structures, their origins, and the elusive spaces between... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline