The Castle
28 August 2026 – 27 February 2026
I never made the distinction between, say, the museum, and the hardware store, Claes Oldenburg
The Castle is a shifting, changing homage to the everyday and ordinary of 2014, overlapping the language of the museum and gallery with that of the retail environment. Hollington and Kyprianou’s new work explores ideas of the mundanity of vision and the everyday reading of commercial space, within the Folkestone branch of Wilko. With playful reconsidering of the point where product design and sculpture intersect their work generates a ‘double take’, emphasising how heavily both readings rely on context.
The artists’ intention, via their subtle and not-so-subtle sculptural interventions is to create an instantly recognisable, but oddly different retail space. They are interested in playing with the idea that humans are hardwired to read information as narratives and construct stories, and how this can be played out in the narratively designed space of a varied but branded home-care store, such as Wilko.
These narratives are infiltrated and subverted through sculptural interruptions in the retail space. The Castle conflates art with DIY on shop signage, information boards and caption panels; as a history of rainbows in art on a goods lift door, picture frames and photobooks; on paint displays and colour charts recalling William Burroughs’ shotgun paintings, John Latham’s spray can works; as DIY takes on Richard Hamilton’s Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?, and Yves Klein’s Leap into the Void, and on the synthetic household paints used by Jack ‘The Dripper’ Pollock.
Hollington and Kyprianou have been collaborating for 15 years. Their work has been shown at Tate Modern, ICA London as well as internationally in North and South America, Australia and Europe including the 51st Venice Biennale.
The Castle is on display at Wilko, 9 Sandgate, Folkestone, Kent. CT20 1SB.
Hollington and Kyprianou also appeared at the Art Car Boot Fair in Folkestone on Saturday 30 August 2014.
The Castle is launched in association with Folkestone Fringe 2014