A Tear Rips Across a London Building in Alex Chinneck’s Latest Installation

You could easily assume that Alex Chinneck is an architect. Or a magician. The trained fine artist’s surreal “sculptural interventions in unexpected contexts,” as he calls them, have appeared temporarily on buildings around the U.K. His most recent effort there is also his first permanent one: Six Pins and Half a Dozen Needles at a mixed-use complex, Assembly London. Inspired by one building’s previous tenant, a publishing company, the installation resembles a sheet of paper torn in half—albeit a 10-ton one rendered in brick. He scanned torn sheets of real paper to design the shape of the 8-inch-deep crack. As for the artwork’s name, it’s “a muddle of thoughts and a mixture of words,” he notes, that nod to the tools needed to repair a tear.

> See more from the August 2017 issue of Interior Design