IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Musgrave Row, EXETER, EX4 3JR

The Exeter Riddle echoes the work of Pol Bury in his fountain sculpture amongst the Buren Columns in the Palais Royale in Paris. In the fountain sculpture, (also public art), the stainless steel balls are composed from two independently moving hemispheres which reflect the ancient buildings and the modern world. They too, by the nature of their shape and their reflective surfaces, show us a frozen moment in time if we look into them. Michael Fairfax's sculpture shares in this enigmatic characteristic, giving us our moment in serial time. The steel balls act like extreme wide angle lenses, wrapping us up in a 360 degree environment, converting our existence into a microcosm. If you study the image, you will notice that each ball reflects a different microcosm covering different elements in a different "mise en scene" including reflections of other steel balls containing their own reflections. A more obviously enigmatic aspect is that the sculpture is inscribed with riddles which are reflected in planes of the sculpture to assist us to "read" them in a conventional fashion, from left to right, horizontally across the "page". But perhaps we are meant to read them in their reverse image to challenge our minds to wander to other mirrors in other works of art that shift our sense of perception and our existence. Jean Cocteau's "Orphee" springs to mind. It is good to have a Sphinx-like presence in the high street, over and beyond time.

See Image] for a detailed description and Image] and Image] and Image] for more interesting photos.

Musgrave House is in the centre. To the left the cream building is 9 Gandy Street, Queens House and 92 Queen Street, to the right is part of 223 to 226 High Street.

See Image; this gives a glimpse behind the barricades. The library is expected to re-open in Spring 2014 after a £4.1m redevelopment. "This includes improving the reception area,enhancing the views and creating an entrance into Rougemont Gardens" http://www.devonnewscentre.info/exeter-central-library-the-latest/ .

The blue board gives a contact number should you wish to employ him for a "proffessional service"; so, if your chosen design includes any text, double-check the spelling with him. Anyway, this certainly brightens up a seedy corner next to New Buildings, and adds to the collection of Exeter's murals. The artist is Andrew Alleway (assisted by Amanda Jewell). "The theme is the history of Exeter with witches, pirates and Roman soldiers arranged around a central depiction of Toisa's cross that was once placed on the corner of Gandy Street to protect it from carts" http://www.exetermemories.co.uk/EM/21st_century_exeter.html

With Image Artist Andrew Alleway has now completed the mural. "The theme is the history of Exeter with witches, pirates and Roman soldiers arranged around a central depiction of Toisa's cross that was once placed on the corner of Gandy Street to protect it from carts." http://www.exetermemories.co.uk/EM/21st_century_exeter.html , which also has a picture of the artist and his assistant working on the mural on 19th September.

A view the other way is at http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/836970.

The library is built on a slope; ground level here is one floor below the public area. The upper floors of the wing on the right house computers, meeting rooms and some non-fiction sections of the library