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Skip Watch with Branston Cowdell

Spotting overloaded skips is starting to become an addiction for me and I think I’m going to have to book myself into some kind of waste management rehab centre if I don’t ween myself off them soon!

I can’t stop spotting them and one of my recent photographic efforts is available for your viewing pleasure this month (above). This photo, although not as impressive as some I’ve been sent over the past three or four months, does strike me as being aesthetically very pleasing and I think it’s the kind of nonsense that could easily win the Turner art prize one year. If Tracy Emin can get away with exhibiting a messy bed and Damian Hirst can call a skull with diamonds glued all over it, ‘art’, then why shouldn’t this little overloaded beauty take the modern art world by storm too?

Another great photo has been sent to me by one of our former Skip Hunk’s, Craig Adkins (Issue 21). The photo (right) is less pretty than mine but is hellishly overloaded nevertheless and because of that fact alone, wins this month’s competition hands down.
I still think there’s a skip out there, so overloaded and bloated it could beat all the photos I’ve received so far though. Maybe I’m wrong (for the sake of all you hardworking skip truck drivers I hope I am), and maybe the bar has been raised as high as it can go.
If, however, you want to prove me wrong, take a photo of the next ‘fit-to-bursting’ skip you see and email your entries through to the usual email address or post them to -
The Skip, Baxall Business Centre, Adswood Road, Stockport, SK3 8LF.
I look forward (as ever) to seeing your entries.
This article Was originally published in Issue 24 of The Skip magazine

July 23, 2007 at 8:52 am | Skip Hire Industry News | No comment

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Skip Watch with Branston Cowdell

It’s not often that the words ‘skip’ and ‘art’ are uttered in the same sentence. The waste management industry isn’t known for it’s aesthetic creativity.
Martin Kippenberger, a German artist (born 1953 – died 1997) however, did his best to change all that.
Kippenberger was known for his mischievousness. His work experimented with controversial ideas and made a mark on the art world of the 1990s as part of the German ‘Neue Wilde’ (‘New Wild’) movement. His obsessive pursuit of controversy often left a trail of offence – he once produced a sculpture of a toad being crucified!
In fact, when he first exhibited his work in London in 1992, the Daily Mirror was quick to question the value of his work and mocked his ideas. What did Kippenberger do? He simply laminated and framed the derogatory article and put it on display with the rest of his work (which included a framed piece of plasterboard accompanied by a taped recording of people making pigeon noises!).
The piece of art you can see at the top of this article is an installation Kippenberger called, Heavy Burschi (Heavy Guy, 1991). On the walls are displayed the photographs of 51 paintings which Kippenberger asked an assistant to make, but decided to destroy. In the centre of the room, in the skip, are the remnants of the original paintings.
This installation made up part of the posthumous exhibition of Kippenberger’s work which was displayed in the Tate Modern last year.
Fifteen years on from the Daily Mirror’s questioning of his worth as an artist, Kippenberger is now regarded as one of the most influential artists of his time.
Kippenberger was a master appropriator who consistently absorbed, challenged and transformed the world around him. He was also acutely aware of the importance of self-publicity (why else produce work portraying toad crucifixions and art filled skips – right?) and worked on the concept that, as the 20th Century reached its close, it was impossible to produce anything original or authentic anymore.
Whatever you think of his work (and it’s not just skips and crucified toads – he produced beautiful paintings too) it’s definitely thought provoking and amusing.
Who says Germans haven’t got a sense of humour?
This article was originally published in Issue 21 of The Skip Magazine

April 15, 2007 at 8:35 am | Skip Hire Industry News | No comment

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Skip Watch with Branston Cowdell

“Dumpster Chic! It’s like so now and stuff! Haven’t you heard of it? My God, Branston, you’re like so backward!”
Yes, someone really did say that to me this week as I sat down thinking what I could write next about the vibrant world of skips. I thought I’d be reduced to obsessing over the sweet parallel lines of the 12 yard maxi skip or the dwarfish curiosity of the 2 yard mini. But no – ‘Dumpster Chic’ it is!
Put ‘Dumpster Chic’ into Google and you get 55,200 results. It’s everywhere. Rock singer Ryan Adams has it. Fashion designer of the moment, Marc Jacobs has it (his ‘Fall 2006’ collection was described as “vagabond urban richness” by the New York Times). Helena Bonham Carter definitely has it.
Basically, if you look like you’ve just jumped out of a skip, wearing whatever you could find in there (discounting skips filled merely with rubble and soil of course) – you’ve got ‘Dumpster Chic’. Think Brad Pitt in a movie adaptation of ‘Rab C Nesbitt’, or Kate Moss dressed like the bloke from Dexy’s Midnight Runners and you’re nearly there.
In America right now, Mary Kate Olsen (child star / teen queen) is the epitomy of ‘Dumpster Chic’ after being repeatedly photographed wearing scruffy outfits of such shoddiness, tramps in New York have started holding signs saying things like, ‘Mary Kate Stole My Other Outfit’ and ‘Mary – Wear Me’.
So, will it catch on in Britain? Why not give it a go? It can’t be long until we see Sienna Miller wearing a matching tarpaulin and worn carpet ensemble – can it? Where America leads we surely follow….
This article originally appeared in Issue 18 of The Skip

January 19, 2007 at 9:00 am | Skip Hire Industry News | No comment

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Skip Watch with Branston Cowdell

A London skip hire firm are ecstatic after one of their skips makes it onto TV!
Simpson Skip Hire, based in Park Royal, are a hugely successful company, supplying thousands of skips every year across the capital – and with success comes fame. Primetime Wednesday night TV fame to be precise.
Yes! One of Simpson’s skips made it onto a recent episode of, ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ – a BBC 1 documentary series which each week follows a chosen celebrity as they explore the history of their family.
In a ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ performance, the skip could clearly be seen in the rear windscreen of a taxi Nigella Lawson was travelling in – FOR A WHOLE 0.87 SECONDS!
The appearance came nine minutes into the show and was greeted with rapture in North West London.
It even brought a little bit of excitement to my life as a skip spotting aficionado (make that ‘skip geek’ – Ed).
As the skip was spotted in my household, my girlfriend turned to me and said, “That skip was really bright and yellow.”
“Yes”, I replied, “It was a happy skip”
This article was first published in Issue 16 of The Skip

November 1, 2006 at 2:19 pm | Skip Hire Industry News | No comment

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