From the Knees of My Nose to the Belly of My Toes is a surreal display by British designer Alex Chinneck that makes it look like the brick facade is sliding right off the front of a building in Margate, England. The eye-catching installation, which took Chinneck approximately one year to bring to fruition, takes a four-story residence that had been abandoned for eleven years and replaces the old frontage with a new one that slumps down and curves outward, leaving the front door lying perpendicular to the top row of windows.
The London-based artist plays with the architecture of the fire and water-damaged building, exposing its crumbling state at the top where the facade has sunk too low to cover. It serves a hard-to-miss surprise for locals who are left to speculate what happened, as Chinneck doesn’t like to put up signs or any indication that it is a manipulated artwork. In an interview with Dezeen, he says, “I just feel this incredible desire to create spectacles. I wanted to create something that used the simple pleasures of humour, illusion and theatre to create an artwork that can be understood and enjoyed by any onlooker.”
The dilapidated building will feature Chinneck’s playful attachment for the next year until it is scheduled to be reconstructed for housing purposes.
Photo credit: Stephen O’Flaherty
Alex Chinneck website
via [Dezeen, Colossal]