Dazzle Ship: Carlos Cruz-Diez

Liverpool Biennial’s launch commission in partnership with Tate Liverpool and WWI art commissioning organisation 14-18 NOW comes from Venezuelan artist Carlos Cruz-Diez. Unveiled in June, Dazzle Ship works with ‘dazzling,’ an abstraction technique that uses geometric patterns, colours and shapes as a form of camouflage. Dazzling was used extensively during WWI and the idea was that, rather than hiding your position, you would confuse your enemy instead. Due to the ship’s form appearing to be broken up and distorted by the painted exterior, it would be difficult to identify the ship's main features or the direction in which it was sailing. “They were artworks created for war and to avoid death,” says Cruz-Diez. The artist has conceived a composition in vibrant greens, yellows and reds (not entirely un-World-Cup-ish), which was then painted on to historic pilot ship the Edmund Gardner by a team from Cammell Laird’s shipyard.

Artist Norman Wilkinson is credited with inventing the technique while serving in the Royal Naval Reserve onboard submarines. After the periscope would break through the surface of the water, there would be only seconds to locate and aim at the chosen ship target. His idea was that if the submarine was confused about what or where it was aiming for in those few seconds, it would be liable to miss and lives would be saved. After the British Admiralty took up the technique, Wilkinson was put in charge of the naval camouflage unit based in studios at the Royal Academy of Art in London, where he worked with art students and fellow naval experts to perfect the techniques.

One artist who worked on the painting of the original dazzle ships was Edward Wadsworth, one of the founders of Vorticism. Growing out of Cubism, another form of abstraction, the movement is famous for its odd wonky geometic lines and wiggly modernism. Abstraction is a big theme for Tate Liverpool this summer. “We are exploring the theme of abstraction through our exhibitions Mondrian and his Studios, and Nasreen Mohamedi, as well as our upcoming Biennial Claude Parent installation,” says Tate’s artistic director, Francesco Manacorda. “Dazzle Ship," he says, "takes this theme outside of the gallery walls and explores and demonstrates how abstract art has a real-life application.”

The Biennial is, of course, a festival of art and culture in the city and is therefore naturally celebratory. Sometimes, however, the constant colourful jollity of the public artworks that appear in Liverpool can wear a little thin – it’s pleasing to see the more sinister-looking death-star building that houses the Open Eye Gallery lurking behind Dazzle Ship. A fitting sense of history and place, however, prevails, and the story of the birth of dazzle ships and the role of artists in the war is a fascinating one to look into.

From the archive:

Rainbow Connection: A Tour of Carlos Cruz-Diez's Paris Atelier