'Motorway Men' & 'Over The Intersection'.

Abstract

The Life Room exhibition curated by Donald Smith for the Chelsea Space London was a cross disciplinary concept to link art, design, science and medicine. It was an enquiry into what might constitute' life drawing' in the digital age and is a search for a new cultural and social space for the future. The concept was conceived to have a lasting effect on the planning of educational, fitness, and cultural public spaces. The Life Room project opened in 2009, As a pioneering cultural experiment, it was strategically timed with the ambition that the Life Room would appear in museums, galleries, educational institutions and fitness centers across the country as part of the Cultural Olympiad and the 2012 Olympics. In her review of the exhibition in the publication 'This is Tomorrow' Emma Crawley writes 'The Life Room' is an extremely unique and refreshing exhibition in its exploration of the arts and sports and its insistence on audience participation. In consideration of the pending 2012 London Olympic Games. The rise of the fitness gym in the late 20th and early 21st century represents a new realization of the Olympian ideal and classical beauty; a place to see and be seen, where people work on and observe the human form and where individuals can recreate themselves by sculpting/modeling their bodies through exercise'. The traditional academic rigour of drawing from the naked human form was highlighted in a survey section of the exhibition which included an early work by Ferry (1979) drawn in the ‘life class’ of Camberwell School of Art, under the tutelage of Mario Dubsky, and previously never exhibited, This section contrasted purposefully with the interactive video work made for (and during) this exhibition by David Barnet (2009) with participation by David Ferry, the actor Dudley Sutton, artist Bruce MacLean, and curator Donald Smith.