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Message
Posted
Here in Plymouth, we have recently been delighted to have the travelling poppies draped around our Naval War Memorial in the shape of "the Wave", sculpture. Having strong military links, it seems that Plymouth people really appreciated this. We have also been treated to an exhibition of Andrew Logan's reflective work at Buckland Abbey, which on the whole has gone down well.
However, it seems that we are going to have a giant bronze woman bending over outside the Theatre Royal, called "Bianca" by Joseph Hillier. It is going to cost the best part of half a million pounds. Many people are wondering why, in the light of cut backs in Local Authorities, when there is not enough money for social care or health. We are also going to have a number of murals around the city in time for the Mayflower 400 celebrations, signed by Plymouth University students.
I admit that we are a bit short of Public Art here. We have quite a lot of monuments, but not many sculptures or murals.
I wondered what you all think of Public art and what is it for. what do link that it should portray? Can you think of good and bad examples?
I'm looking forward to your thoughts.
Linda Wilson.
Posted
Who is actually paying for it? One of these lottery-funded things? We had one of those, called a Koan - planted outside the local hospital, it's a multi-coloured, er, cone that was supposed to revolve on its base. After a very short time, however, the motor malfunctioned, and since then it has stood there like .... well I could tell you what it's like; but this is a family website. Let us just say it bears an unhappy resemblance to a toy which some use to enhance their erotic pleasures, in ways which are somewhat mysterious to me.
So my appetite for public art has taken a bit of a knock in recent years, in that so much of it seems to be crass. Whether a woman bending over outside your theatre can be so described, I wouldn't know - I suppose it rather depends on why and how she is bending over; I HAVE formed a rather unpleasant picture of this in my mind's eye, but then that's the sort of mind I've got, and even disinfectant is an inadequate remedy.
On the whole, public art is sculpture, or the sort of sculpture-cum-installation which I suppose is what our Koan is meant to be; most of it is awful; much of it is widely loathed or mocked; all of of it divides opinion - e.g. the Maggie Hambling memorial to Benjamin Britten on a beach whose location I forget, the Angel of the North, statuary intended to be heroic, for example the monuments to Lenin in full flow, Margaret Thatcher, Winston Churchill, Queen Victoria ..... and Saddam Hussein; all of these have had their defenders and critics, although while the old buzzard was still alive, the last of these received little if any criticism in Iraq.
I quite like some unofficial public art - murals, if well done (they rarely are, but I wouldn't want to try painting one), for instance - but the official stuff, sanctioned by committees, paid for by the National Lottery or some eccentric's bequest generally leaves me feeling that the square, plaza, street or building embellished by it looked a lot better before than it does after.
Mind you, you always have to bear in mind that I'm a miserable sod.
Posted
Thanks for the link Pat. I rather like King Arthur, particularly the gaps, giving space to look through. Arthur is relevant to the history of the location and therefor I think is justified. Not sure about the dirty old man of Scarborough though. I don't understand why a working man would take his hammer on holiday with him.
In Pat's link, there are lots of pictures of the Kelpies at Falkirk. These are fantastic and awe-inspiring. I had the good fortune to be able to see them before they started charging. They were inspired by mythical creatures from legendary history of Scotland. Definitely worth a visit. Technically very difficult to produce, I would think. Size matters in this case. Seeing them up close is not the same as looking at pictures on your computer.
A quick word about Owain Glyndwr - My Grandmother did not know what to call my father, but on the way to the registry office, she saw a statue of Owain Glyndwr and so called him Glyndwr!.
Also in Pat's link are images of Antony Gormley'''' Angel of the North. Having passed it a couple of times on the motorway and not been over impressed, I visited up close on a sunny day. Well worth it! It just glowed - You can also see the relevance to the industrial North.
I will try to find a link for Bianca - a Shakespearian character apparently. I've also found some wall art on my travels, which you might like to see.
Posted
Hee hee - yes, it's a T-handled walking-stick; I bet Sylvia was being witty .... she does a lot of that.
As an habitual user of walking-sticks, I do wonder why more of them don't have handles like this, because they're much easier to hold and give stability; but there we are.... wherever that is.
I like the old gent on his seat, as obviously do the young women sitting next to him. King Arthur ..... well; I'm sure it's very clever; others have followed on in this style, with - putting it crudely - chunks missing; it's a style which can become a cliché remarkably quickly, and I'm not sure it hasn't. And leaving that aside, I don't know that King Arthur really had the first thing to do with Tintagel, always assuming he existed; I prefer ancient sites to speak for themselves without being decked out with pretend history. And really, this gets to the base of my reservations about public art: it tends to be tacky on a range from amazingly kitsch through slightly inappropriate to just about fitting if you're prepared to stretch a point.
On the whole, as Groucho Marx said, "whatever it is, I'm against it". But then, he was a miserable sod, too.
Posted
Sorry about my mistake. My husband has just done a course in creative writing, which he has taken too like a duck to water. Consequently, my life is filled with murder stories and I seem to interpret anything as a weapon.
Going back to Bianca, I've tried a few times and failed miserably to copy the link. If anyone is interested there is a video on Plymouth Herald and on BBC Spotlight of the proposed sculpture and its manufacture. Apparently she was a Shakespearean sex worker. Although Plymouth did have an active sex trade in Union street (the Sailor's half mile), I don't think that Plymothians want to be remembered for it now. The Theatre Royal is not in Union Street anyway.
But I thought you might like this sculpture that I spotted on a recent trip to Budapest. It is not obvious, but someone has pinched that artist's paint brush!
Incidentally the bridge was designed by the same engineer as Hammersmith bridge.
Posted
The old guy sitting on his seat by the North Bay in Scarborough was paid for by a local lady who thought it would be nice to use her money to provide something for locals and visitors. I believe it is modelled on a WW2 veteran who helped liberate the Belsen concentration camp.
The lady benefactor went on to fund a further statue of smugglers which is in the old town at Scarborough.
Posted
Splosh - I was going to mention the Kelpies before I read your post. They are fantastic. I watched a programme about how they were built and it was pretty awe-inspiring. I had no idea they charged you to go and see them! - at least you get a good view off the motorway. We have a fair bit of good 'motorway art' here in Scotland: the Heavy Horse, the Big Heids, the grass pyramids with the sheep that are dyed a different colour every year, a big trumpet (that many people don't realise is actually art) and the four-armed woman of Cumbernauld ...
Kay M
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