“Killed By A Bouncy Castle” screams the front pages of a few newspapers today. <\/p>\n
I’m not sure which I’m more appalled by: the horrific, Ian McEwan-like event itself; or the fact that it’s considered to be more newsworthy than the Israeli-Lebanon crisis. Though I can see the tabloid editors’ point: the mass killing of innocents in the Middle East is a more depressingly common story than the surreal terror of this unlikely new accident.<\/p>\n
Or that the artist Maurice Agis’s signature ‘Dreamspace’ installation, developed over a lifetime through various incarnations, has not only received its zenith of publicity as a result of this tragedy – but to add insult to actual injury, they’re calling it a bouncy castle. That most tacky of summer attractions. <\/p>\n
Thousands of people who have visited Mr Agis’s installations over the decades – which were all based on the same sort of ‘colour maze’ theme – know that Dreamspace is not only far from being a simple ‘bouncy castle’, but is part of a famous, enduring and popular series of artworks. <\/p>\n
I recall his previous, more simple installations, called “Colourspace”. One of them turned up at the Puffin Show at the Commonwealth Institute in Kensington, in 1981. I visited it a few times later, never tiring of wandering around the peaceful, ambient landspace of this unique multicoloured labyrinth. Colourspace was a regular feature of London summers, pitched at festivals or in the grounds of museums.<\/p>\n