Ten images from David Lachapelle’s ‘Refineries and Gas’ series have suddenly appeared on the top of bus stops in Central London, between Somerset House on the Strand and Trafalgar Square. The photographs were created using scale models made out of everyday objects, and are designed to be viewed from the top deck of a double-decker bus enabling the everyday commuter to become the viewer of a piece of public art whilst travelling to their destination – if they perceptive enough to spot the work.
“In these gadget and app-based times, people don’t have time to go to, say, White Cube and view work as much as they would [like to],” says George Annin, from Annïn Art, which organised the exhibition in collaboration with Transport For London to create the series of public art pieces; “There’s a whole generation of people who are glued to their iPhones. If they are going to engage with some work at any level, positively or negatively, I think it’s better than not seeing any work at all.”
The work is the American photographer’s first public art intervention in Britain. The bus stop installations follow a earlier project organised by Annïn Art with the photographer Juergen Teller and is part of Transport for London and London Transport Museum’s Year of the Bus. The exhibition, which will continue to the end of September.