HMS President (1918), Victoria Embankment, London EC4Y 0HJ
Leading artist Tobias Rehberger, will transform London’s HMS President (1918) by covering it entirely in ‘dazzle camouflage’ print as part of the 14-18 NOW special commissions programme to mark the centenary of the First World War. Co-commissioned with Chelsea College of Art and Design, Liverpool Biennial and Tate Liverpool, the work will be unveiled Today Monday 14th July 2014 on the Thames.
As one of the last three surviving warships of the Royal Navy built during the First World War, the HMS President (1918), the first type of warship built specifically for anti-submarine warfare would have originally been decorated in this way. Now moored permanently on the Thames near Somerset House, Rehberger’s art work will see this London landmark return to a state similar to that of almost one hundred years ago.
‘Dazzle camouflage’, also know as ‘dazzle painting’ was used extensively during the First World War as a means of camouflaging a ship, making it difficult for the enemy to target it accurately. This visual technique has been a recurring theme in Rehberger’s work. In 2009 he was awarded the Golden Lion Award at the 53rd International Venice Biennale for an entire café he rendered in dazzle print.
The principle of dazzle painting was first introduced in 1914 by the scientist John Graham Kerr to then First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, with the intention of adopting disruptive camouflage which was initially called ‘parti-colouring’. The idea was not to ‘hide’ the ships, but to paint them in such a way that their appearance was optically distorted, so that it was difficult for a submarine to calculate the course the ship was travelling on, and to know from what angle to attack. The ‘dazzle’ effect was achieved by painting the ship in contrasting stripes and curves that broke up its shape and outline.
In 1917, following heavy losses of merchant ships to German submarines, the demand for this camouflage increased. The marine painter, Norman Wilkinson, a future President of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours, promoted the spectacular system of stripes and disrupted lines, characterised by garish colours and sharp interlocking shapes, to which he coined the term ‘dazzle painting’ and was credited with its invention. The strong style unsurprisingly attracted artists’ attention with Picasso claiming it was invented by the Cubists and Vorticist artist Edward Wadsworth, painting a series on the subject after he supervised the application of ‘dazzle’ patterning to over 2,000 ships.
The close relationship of ‘dazzle’ technology to British art extended right through its manufacture. Each British pattern was unique. They were first tested on wooden models, viewed through a periscope in a studio to assess how they would work at sea. Many of the designs were painted onto the models by women from the Royal Academy of Arts in London and then scaled up onto the real thing. Though the practice has largely, but not entirely, fallen out of fashion in the military, ‘dazzle camouflage’ remains a source of inspiration to artists today.
In Liverpool, Venezuelan artist Carlos Cruz-Diez has ‘dazzle camouflaged’ the historic pilot ship, the Edmund Gardner as a companion work. Conserved by Merseyside Maritime Museum, the ship is situated in a dry dock adjacent to Liverpool’s Albert Dock and will be a new public monument for the city.
Tobias Rehberger was born in 1966 in Esslingen on the Necker River, Germany. From 1987 to 1993 he studied under Thomas Bayrle and Martin Kippenberger at Frankfurt’s renowned Städelschule where he has been Professor of Sculpture since 2001 and until recently also Deputy Rector of the Fine Arts Academy. He has been the recipient of many awards including, in 2009, the prestigious Golden Lion for best artist at the 53rd Venice Biennale Exhibition. Exhibited internationally Rehberger has had solo exhibitions at, among others Leeum Samsung Museum, Seoul (2012); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2008); Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2008), Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (2005); MCA Chicago (2000); as well as inclusion in numerous group and gallery shows in New York, Tokyo, London, Paris, Milan, Rome, Brussels, Berlin, and Antwerp. His work is included in many key international collections.
