{"id":9381,"date":"2014-10-23T10:07:11","date_gmt":"2014-10-23T10:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.locwsinternational.com\/?p=9381&langswitch_lang=en"},"modified":"2015-06-25T11:48:35","modified_gmt":"2015-06-25T11:48:35","slug":"dylan-neon-artwork-for-kardomah-cafe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/locwsinternational.com\/?p=9381","title":{"rendered":"Dylan Thomas Inspired Neon Artwork for Kardomah Caf\u00e9"},"content":{"rendered":"

Locws International are pleased to announce their final commission of 2014, as part of the Dylan Thomas Centenary<\/a>.\u00a0Situated on the exterior of Swansea’s famous Kardomah Cafe<\/a>, artist DJ Roberts<\/a> has produced a white neon text running along the Park Street exterior that reads:<\/p>\n

MICHELANGELO, PING-PONG, AMBITION, SIBELIUS, AND GIRLS…<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"dj3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The line is taken from a Dylan Thomas radio broadcast ‘Return Journey\u00a0to Swansea<\/a>‘. In the broadcast,\u00a0Thomas tells of his return to Swansea in search of his former self, growing up in the town. We find him\u00a0at one stage in the Kardomah Caf\u00e9 with his friends, putting the world to rights. They talk\u00a0about ‘music and poetry and painting and politics<\/em>‘. They talk about ‘communism, symbolism,\u00a0Bradman and Braque<\/em>‘. They talk about ‘Michelangelo, ping-pong, ambition, Sibelius, and\u00a0girls…<\/em>‘<\/p>\n

Roberts, who is originally from Sketty in Swansea, explains ‘The work celebrates Thomas’ humour, something all\u00a0too often overlooked in work that commemorates him. The use of neon is a sly reference\u00a0to the bright lights that so attracted him.\u00a0It’s a great sounding line, and of particular relevance in\u00a0today’s digital age, when we are bombarded with disparate information and imagery, ranging\u00a0from the trivial to the profound. It is a line that will intrigue, always a good thing in a work of\u00a0public art, and by positioning it on the Kardomah a piece of text from ‘Return Journey’ is enabled to\u00a0return to the place that inspired it.’<\/p>\n

The Kardomah Gang or\u00a0The Kardomah Boys<\/a> as they were known\u00a0was a group of\u00a0artists, musicians, poets and writers \u2013 who, in the 1930s, frequented the\u00a0Kardomah Caf\u00e9\u00a0in Castle Street,\u00a0Swansea, Wales.\u00a0Regulars included Dylan Thomas\u00a0and\u00a0Vernon Watkins\u00a0and artists such as\u00a0Alfred Janes.\u00a0Swansea was\u00a0heavily bombed\u00a0in 1941 and Castle Street was just one of the many streets in Swansea that suffered badly. After the bombing, Dylan Thomas came back to visit Swansea. He later he wrote about the devastation in his radio play entitled\u00a0Return Journey to Swansea<\/i>. In the play, he describes the caf\u00e9 as being “Razed to the snow”.\u00a0The Kardomah Caf\u00e9 reopened after the war in a new location in Portland Street, a short walk from where the original stood.<\/p>\n

Roberts: ‘I knew the site of the Kardomah had changed since Dylan’s day but the important thing was the name – Kardomah – my ‘Home Sweet Homah’ as Dylan put it in a letter to his friend Charles Fisher. Juliet and Marcus Luporini, who own the Kardomah were highly supportive as was local\u00a0aficionado,\u00a0Jeff Towns<\/a>. Dylan was a terrific humorist as well as a magical lyricist, and I hope the installation makes this point as strongly as possible.’<\/p>\n

\"dj2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Owner Marcus Luporini, whose parents Pietro and Cathy ran the caf\u00e9 before him, said: “People love the fact that the cafe hasn’t changed since they first started coming 30 or 40 years ago. We know our customers and there is a lot of banter. It is like one big family.<\/a>”<\/p>\n

Launched to coincide with the Dylan Thomas Festival<\/a> and the centenary of his birth, it is one of many works commissioned for the Dylan Thomas Centenary. Locws commissioned six artists and writers earlier in 2014 including Turner Prize winner Jeremy Deller<\/a>‘s More Poetry Is Needed. Commissioned by Locws International, the text will be made and installed by NeonNeon<\/a>\u00a0who have previously worked with include Mona Hatoum, Cerith Wyn Evans and Tracy Emin.\u00a0They have just installed another DJ Roberts neon, I’m In Love With The Modern World<\/em>, above a 99p Store in Walthamstow High Street, London.<\/p>\n

\"dj\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Locws International are pleased to announce their final commission of 2014, as part of the Dylan Thomas Centenary.\u00a0Situated on the exterior of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9447,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[216,287,4,6,7,162],"tags":[322,131,324,323],"class_list":["post-9381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-about-the-artworks","category-dylan-thomas-100","category-education","category-heritage","category-installation","category-swansea-icons","tag-dylan","tag-neon","tag-robberts","tag-thomas-centenary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/locwsinternational.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/locwsinternational.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/locwsinternational.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/locwsinternational.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/locwsinternational.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9381"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/locwsinternational.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9416,"href":"https:\/\/locwsinternational.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9381\/revisions\/9416"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/locwsinternational.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/locwsinternational.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/locwsinternational.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/locwsinternational.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}