See David Batchelor's Chromolocomotion

On Tuesday, your author went to St Pancras Station to hear a few words from David Batchelor, the second artist commissioned by HS1 for their annual Terrace Wires series of works of art above the Eurostar platforms. Of course everyone's instinctive reaction was to compare Batchelor's Chromolocomotion to the Tetris computer game, which most of those within earshot were doing, for it's very easy to associate it with the most famous tessellation of colourful shapes in the world.


Now that that's over with, it is probably worth saying that this the piece is aesthetically pleasing, but it's more design than art. Batchelor admitted openly that he came up with the idea quickly on the back of a piece of paper, and when it was chosen he commissioned someone else to put it together. On Tuesday night, he seemed much more interested in flogging his book than discussing any vision behind the work, and perhaps that's ultimately because it's quite a simple work based around a simple pattern. Nevertheless, it's quite pleasant, working well with the light coming through the roof, and Batchelor seems at ease with what he's doing, which is putting up 20m x 10m of stained-glass-style coloured perspex shards above a platform in a famous train shed.

For more, see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-26924430