The emerging British artist James Capper will be unveiling a new amphibious sculpture to coincide with the Venice Biennale. The work has been specifically made for the “situation of Venice – it being on water” says the curator Alma Zevi. Titled SIX STEP, the sculpture has the ability to travel on land, water and crucially, move between both.
Partly inspired by the working boats that navigate La Serenissima’s canals with heavy machinery on their decks, SIX STEP took Capper three months to build and “many more months to conceptualise and fine-tune with drawings [and] models”, Zevi says.
SIX STEP will be shown at the temporary space Rio dell'Orso, adjacent to the canal of the same name, from 29 April until 2 October 2015. But despite the machine’s maneuverability being “a really important part of the work” there will be no demonstration in Venice. “We will want to test and demonstrate it at a later stage in a different context [but] the building we’re showing it in is quite old,” Zevi says. “And there would be lots of vibrations…”