Neons for the Reading Power Station 1999

Editor: Stephen Antonakos’s “Neons for the Reading Power Station,” created in 1999, really strikes me as a strangely beautiful industrial scene. The juxtaposition of harsh architecture softened by those delicate neon lines… what do you make of this? Curator: It's almost a playful, tongue-in-cheek dialogue, isn’t it? The grittiness of the power station, usually seen as a symbol of heavy industry, is subverted. Antonakos uses neon, an element itself artificial, but imbued with a certain romantic glow, to adorn this behemoth. It makes you wonder: Is it celebration or commentary? A bandage on something inherently… polluting? Or, perhaps, a testament to humanity's strange capacity to find—or create—beauty in unexpected places. Does the location of the art add to that feeling for you? Editor: Definitely! I mean, it makes you rethink the space, right? What you’d normally dismiss becomes… something to contemplate. Like a found object, almost? Curator: Precisely. Think about the timeframe too – the late 90s. Pre-widespread climate awareness. The reading power station, an ugly and yet strangely magnetic presence, it really changes how one feels. It could be Antonakos is using the familiar industrial imagery as an introspective medium to force his viewer to make assumptions. It certainly prompts the question: can we reconcile industry and aesthetics? Editor: I never considered the timing like that, it's very interesting. Thank you. Curator: My pleasure, this kind of artwork benefits from our ever-shifting gaze.