Alan Kotok

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Government Art Collection

The World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C, was founded in 1994 to develop and promote standard web technologies. Daniel Weitzner is Director of the Consortium’s Technology and Society activities. Nick Crowe has portrayed Weitzner and the other twelve members of the Management Committee through a simple hand-engraved outline on glass, which casts a shadow onto the paper behind. Ranged around the portrait of Tim Berners-Lee, Director of W3C and inventor of the web, when displayed, the series alludes to depictions of Christ and the twelve apostles. Although the people at the head of this incredibly influential, but little-known, organisation have a huge impact on our lives, we would probably not recognise them were we to meet them on the street. By portraying them in such an intangible, ephemeral way, Crowe comments on the vaporous nature of the web and its organisational power structures.

Nick Crowe was born in Barnsley and studied at Barnsley College of Art and the University of Hull. His work has been exhibited widely, both in this country and abroad. He has acted as a curator and has held visiting lectureships at numerous art schools, including Goldsmiths, the Slade and the Ruskin School of Art. He lives and works in Manchester.

People

Alan Kotok (1941 - 2006)

Places

Subjects

male portrait, computing, man

Materials & Techniques

paper (as artists material), glass (glass as material), engraved glass, engraving process

Artist

Nick Crowe (1968 - )

Title

Alan Kotok

Series Title

The Management Committee of the World Wide Web Consortium (w3c)

Edition

3/3

Date

2000

Medium

Engraved glass panel

Dimensions

height: 55.00 cm, width: 38.00 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Mobile Home, February 2003

Provenance

Mobile Home, London

GAC number

17764/9