CHRIS DOBROWOLSKI
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      • Boris zip wire
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      • 'EK52 UDP'
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      • Matchbox
      • Instant Gratification
    • Badgast Residency >
      • Short Essay
      • De Wrede Zee
      • Fish
      • Chips
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      • Panorama Mesdag
    • Selfie Slot Car Racing >
      • Project Outline
      • Film by Andy Wiltshire
      • Librarian Pit Crew
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    • Coventry Transport Museum Residency >
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Boris Zip Wiree


Picture
​I was supposed to be at the Brighton festival setting up an art installation made from this car called ‘Washed up Car-go’.

My girlfriend worked in Bath. Earlier on that year she and another friend moved into a house on an estate in one of the suburbs. You can see the house in the background of the photo. I drove the car down to Bath in the middle of March so I could spend a long weekend helping out with some DIY on the house. While I was there one of my upcoming projects was cancelled due to the Covid 19 crisis so I stayed longer. Then I heard Brighton festival was cancelled so I stayed longer still. As I slowly realised everything was cancelled it also too late to go back to Essex and I was basically stranded there for the whole of the first lockdown.

​As well as Brighton I was also supposed to be doing a slide talk at Chelsea college of Art that month. I was looking for some images for the talk and came across one of my old projects called ‘Selfie Slot car racing’ It was a community project that involved me photographing real cars from every angle, printing out the images; cutting them up and gluing them together to turn them into Scalextrix cars. People were invited along at the end of the project to race the Scalextrix version of their car on a giant circuit.

Picture
​To take the photograph of the roof of each car I had my phone on the end of a ridiculously long selfie stick. Not everyone I approached wanted to be involved but I realised that with my comical appearance with the selfie stick I won them over by
being a disarming fool.

I think it’s the same technique Boris Johnson uses.

Picture
​During lockdown I spent a lot of time doing painting and decorating and general DIY on my girlfriend’s house. It was quite frustrating but my memories of ‘Selfie Slot car racing’ weirdly got me thinking about politics in our ‘post truth era’.

Like most people the covid crisis cut me off from my normal physical relationship to the world. In a paranoid era of political polarisation and ‘fake news’ we have less faith in what we hear than ever before but are more reliant than ever on the internet and the media for a view of the outside world.

Picture
​As a break from the DIY I made something in the garden in response to the situation. One of the things I found difficult about this was that it touches on contemporary politics. Our ‘post truth’ political era is by definition impossible to pin down.

The Boris image of ‘affable clown’ proved charming and disarming. Whether it was engineered or not it’s proved effective for the task of Brexit. Being peculiarly British, it appealed to its idiosyncratic target audience. ‘Herd immunity Boris’ on the other hand, has proved less effective. After his recent life and death NHS encounters a new damascene; ‘best friend of the NHS’ Boris emerged. I was struggling to keep up. I think I made this thing for my own sanity in an attempt to keep the old Boris in view before it was eclipsed.

Picture
​I had limited materials and tools available where I was at the time. Basically a lot old plant pots in the garden. I had one drill that we borrowed just before lockdown but quite a good selection of screws. Like a lot of people I also had a large collection of empty beer cans too.

  • Home
  • in the art gallery
    • Transit Transition >
      • Train Wave
      • The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner
      • Self Evaluation
      • something About Global Capitalism But Less Ernest
      • The Man From Human Resources Is Coming to See You
      • The Ofsted Inspection
      • The Risk Assessment
      • Personal development training day
      • My Matchbox Toy Lorry
      • The Zero Hours Contract
      • The Plinth
    • Remnants Of Utopia >
      • Austerity Miniature Mayday Parade
      • The Contract
      • Agitprop/anti-agitprop Train
      • Siberia
      • How We Won The War
      • Revolutionary Reminder
      • The Marketing Team
    • Antarctica >
      • Project Outline
      • Antarctica Essay
      • Reviews
      • Sledge
      • Toy Sledge
      • Airfix Antarctic Aeroplane Hoover
      • Eating Penguins
      • The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner
      • Toy Snowmobile
      • Rat Box, Bird Island
      • Rejection Letters
      • The Last Roll Of Kodachrome In The World
      • John Deere Gator And Specimen
      • There Are No More Dogs In Antarctica
      • Furthest South- J C B
      • Captain Scotts Bookshelf
      • Antarctic Toy Portraits
    • Landscape, Seascape, Skyscape , Escape >
      • Seascape Escape (No.1)
      • Landscape Escape (No.1)
      • Seascape Escape (No.2)
      • Timescape Escape
      • Landscape Escape (No.2) >
        • Sketches for Tank
      • Skyscape Escape
      • Essay/ Catalogue >
        • Introduction
        • Seascape Escape
        • Landscape Escape No. 1
        • Seascape Escape No.2
        • Landscape Escape No.2
        • Skyscape Escape
        • Timescape Escape
        • End-Piece
      • Reviews and Press
    • Offer Must End Soon >
      • Essay Jess Twyman
      • Reviews
      • Offer Must End Soon
      • Buy My Painting!
      • "Buy My Painting!" For the hard of hearing.
      • "Don't Make Me Take It All Back Home With Me!"
      • How We Won The War
      • "Stop me and buy one!"
      • 'The Cornfield'... free gift inside
      • "Catalogue!"
      • The Contemporary Art Scene
      • Camera Crash
      • "Untitled" hanging itself
      • Buy My Fucking Painting!
      • Absolut Ship !
      • Executive Toy!
      • Art Stunt Suicide Disaster
      • Roll up, Roll up. Get your Art here!
    • Big Country >
      • Big Country
      • The box you stick your head into
      • Europa, Hoek van Holland to Vladivostok
      • Caravans
      • magazine article
    • All at Sea
    • & Model >
      • Reviews
    • Give Me The Money
    • Music and domestic appliances >
      • Sketch for aeroplane
      • The Plinth
      • Cold War Monument
      • Wagon Wheels
      • Vacuum Cleaner Circle
    • ...on the wall...in boxes >
      • My Shitty Studio No.2
      • Sketch for aeroplane No.6
      • Landscape, Seascape, Skyscape, Fire Escape
      • My horrible studio No.1
      • Untitled 240 Volts
      • On the way to the beach party
      • Toy Me No.2
      • It's for you
    • Sweet Jars, glass cases on books >
      • Thatcher
      • The council estate is coming
      • Attack drone and books
      • Muck Spreader
      • Trojan Horse
      • Security Camera
      • Move
      • Epsom Printer, Tank, God
      • Contemporary art- its the law!
      • Tank Caravans Paint Brush
      • Buy to Let
      • Section 21
  • On The Stage
    • All Roads Lead To Rome >
      • Project outline
      • reviews
    • Antarctica >
      • Project Outline
      • Reviews
    • Poland 3 Iran 2 >
      • Project Outline
      • Reviews
    • Landscape, Seascape, Skyscape , Escape >
      • Project Outline
      • Reviews
      • tours and extra stuff
    • How NOT to make a living as an Artist
    • Toy Stories
  • Outside the art gallery
    • Auspicious Phoenix Recycling Palace
    • Covid lockdown with Boris >
      • Boris zip wire
      • Covidtrix
      • what is the truth but a lie agreed upon
    • Goat Train
    • washed up Car - go >
      • Project Outline
      • Reviews
      • 'EK52 UDP'
      • 'VK02 GFK'
      • 'Y194 LPP'
      • Washed Up Car-go (Hastings)
      • Washed Up Car- go (Brighton)
    • Vanishing Point >
      • Project Outline
      • Reviews
      • Red Sports Car, East To West
      • Studebaker Camera Car, Going To The Beach
      • Kite And Candy, Buick
      • Kennedy Lincoln Continental
      • Ambulance Emergency
      • Pink Mustang, at the Golden Gate Bridge
      • Matchbox
      • Instant Gratification
    • Badgast Residency >
      • Short Essay
      • De Wrede Zee
      • Fish
      • Chips
      • Windmill
      • Panorama Mesdag
    • Selfie Slot Car Racing >
      • Project Outline
      • Film by Andy Wiltshire
      • Librarian Pit Crew
      • Experiments with sound
      • Selfie Slot Car Racing at Firstsite Gallery
      • Flitwick Library
    • Coventry Transport Museum Residency >
      • Coventry Concept
      • Poetry Vending Machine
    • Cheap Cheap >
      • Review
    • A Portrait of Casper DeBoer
    • Cranes
    • Hessle Road Residency >
      • Hessle Road (continued)
    • Reisbureau Mareado >
      • Mareado (Continued)
      • City magazine review
    • Windmills >
      • Aerial, wind, sun and radio
      • Guitar Played by the Wind >
        • Winners and Losers
      • Self Portrait
      • Jesus punches banker
    • Performance Sculptures >
      • The groundsman
      • All seeing bicycle lamp
      • Pasta 4 one
      • Revolutionary Reminder
  • publications
    • Solo projects >
      • Escape >
        • Read an Extract
      • Antarctica
      • Offer Must End Soon
      • Tangents
      • Landscape, Seascape, Skyscape , Escape
      • Aerial, wind, sun and radio
    • Group Projects >
      • oceans
      • Talk to me
      • & Model
      • Middlesbrough Art Weekender
      • Translating the Street
      • 1st Sino/british Cont. Art, Yentai
      • Performance, Transport And Mobility
      • Inbetween PS1, New York and Shanghai
      • Odd Coupling
      • Landscapes of Exploration
      • Flip Shift Show Switch
      • Baudrillard Now
      • The Juddykes
      • Dr Roberts Magic Bus
      • Continental Breakfast
      • Lat (living Apart Together)
      • North. Amsterdam 2004
      • Westwijk, Vlaardingen, De Strip
      • Da Da Da Strategies Against Marketecture
      • Reisburo Mareado (The Travel Brochure)
      • Catalogus Mareado
      • Kunst Over De Grens
      • This Flat Earth
      • The Uses of an Artist
      • Kettles Yard Open 97
      • Royal College Of Art Centenary Year
      • Millennium Encyclopedia
    • Press
  • About / contact
    • Biog
    • CV >
      • Solo Exhibitions
      • Live Art
      • Residencies / Commissions
      • Group Exhibitions
      • Education
      • Career History
      • Media Coverage
    • Contact
    • are you on the right website?