August 13, 2023
"In my mind, they have already joined a roll call of shame that includes The Meeting Place at St Pancras station, Paul Day’s irredeemably saccharine sculpture of a couple embracing..."
"... The Kelpies in Falkirk, a pair of gargantuan horse heads by Andy Scott that could only be any worse if they actually neighed; and, most terrible of all, Maggi Hambling’s unfeasibly awful memorial to Mary Wollstonecraft in Newington Green, north London, a silver Barbie doll (with full pubic hair) I have to pass at least once a week, and never without grimacing.... There is an awful lot of bad public art around, and the pity of it is that, once it has landed, it hangs about like some alien spaceship on a hostile planet."
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35 comments:
It is the agendas what suck. Anything short of saved our asses from destruction prolly doesn’t deserve a bronze anything…
"a silver Barbie doll (with full pubic hair)"
Little doubt that the Brillo Manufacturing Company commissioned this "work of art."
Bravo Rachel.
Hey, don't forget about Scary Lucy,
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=scary+lucy
It’s as though a committee of burghers had described Jagger and Richards to a sculptress too young to have any idea what they were talking about.
Be sure to google photos of the artist.
I note in passing that the Denver airport's once-reviled giant Blue Mustang with demonic glowing red eyes is now beloved as, essentially, a city mascot
Basically, the point of all Leftist oppression, such as installing shit described as art in public places, is to keep the boot grinding on the face of the oppressed, until they miss it should it ever stop.
I was intrigued enough to look up The Kelpies, and (yeeech!) Rachel Cooke understates the monstrosities. They're 98 feet tall and just heads and necks. In Scottish folklore, a kelpie was a malignant fairy that normally lived in lochs and rivers like a mermaid, but occasionally it could venture onto land in the form of a magnificent horse. In its equine shape, it would offer itself as a steed to passing mortals, usually drunks. Once mounted the unlucky human would be taken for a fatal ride. Why that myth deserves such constructions isn't clear, despite Andy Scott's fatuous commentary.
The Beatles statue in Liverpool is far superior and depicts something that most likely occurred at somepoint.
There’s no disputing taste.
Looked up Goodman's other stuff. Some of it quite good. Definitely non-prog.
Some critics take their title too seriously.
I think- from the photos I've seen- that the Mick and Keith sculpture is fine. It's not great. The faces look like anyone but them. But the posturing, if you don't look too close, seems like them. It's more or less like a bronze of a favored athlete in front of any number of US sports arenas/stadiums. They don't really look like that person, but you know what they meant by the statue.
Art today is like most other businesses today. Quality is not what it used to be. Detail is gone. Lucky to get a finished product at all. Welcome to what I like to call, the 'Obama Standards'(the new normal).
I wonder how many bogus statues were made in the time of Michelangelos David?
I can’t get no gratifaction
Well, the whale and her calf between them in the photo distract mightily from the essence of the statues but, without that, they're great and they capture the spirit of Mick and Keith quite well.
Pubic art.
Rachel Cooke likes the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs. Clearly she has no business offering an opinion on any public art at any time. The only taste she has in in her mouth.
If you're going to tell us how bad a sculpture is, be sure to include a professional photo, not some tourist snapshot. And then: Here's eight great ones, but we only show you a tourist type picture of one.
Well, the whole issue with public art is the lack of discrimination. When a royal or a billionaire (any difference) spends money, they can discriminate like crazy. If it's public money, the choices of artists have to fit all kinds of socially important categories, with talent being only one (and evidently not deciding).
Hey, remember the MLK hands?
In the time of re-imagening ideals, see Disney and Lizzo; we want our memorials to be about the wonderful present that is just around the corner, if only more people accept it.
Paint them fat.
Since we're talking about public art;
Alice and Helen Lotter's blood was used to write "Kill the Boer" on the walls of their house after they were tortured and murdered. I guess you can see the chant as "a call for violence".
I guess, if I was from Dartford, I would understand, but I don't know. I'm from South Central, Los Angeles, and I'd be embarrassed by a statue dedicated to NWA or ice-T, no matter how good it looked.
I think that statue of Zappa in Eastern Europe is the only statue dedicated to a rock 'n' roll star that I think of as warranted, just because his music played a political role in their lives.
Could anything be worse than the original statue of Lucille Ball in her hometown of Celeron, NY, dubbed "Scary Lucy"?
Nothing can beat the phallic/excremental embrace of MLK and Coretta in Bosten.
Yes, all the sculptures mentioned are terrible - actually, they're so terrible that they make the Glimmer Twins statue look okay.
My favorite recent sculpture would be the MLK statue in Riverside California. It's life size and in a position which invites viewing.
More here.
Paint it black.
"There is an awful lot of bad public art around"
Public art is an oxymoron.
Our Scot touring guide in 2017, sped past the Kelpies. He was disgusted by the "horse heads made of old beer cans".
They also wanted an exorbitant admission fee.
But I like the statues of Keith, and Mick. I think it captures their performing dynamic. Of course, I'm also a Stones fan.
@ Earnest Prole
Just be sure to specify "Amy Goodman sculptor" in the search, because there's also an Amy Goodman who is a leftist commentator for Democracy Now.
Why that myth deserves such constructions isn't clear,
It's a fishing story!! The one that got away.
The pubic art is puzzling. I'm not able to make any sense of Mary Wollstonecraft's vulva, but maybe the images are just bad photographs. What happened to frontal cleavage, or more modestly just hair?
It seems to me this is just blatant anatomical incorrectness.
It takes a while for a public monument to generate affection or revulsion. Give it a few generations. The Eiffel Tower, The Statue of Liberty and even the universally beloved Lenin Mausoleum in Moscow had their detractors when they were first erected...The Rolling Stones statue is okay and probably better than what was there before. Still Keith Richards should donate his body to the town and it should be properly embalmed and given the full Lenin treatment. I bet a lot more tourists would go to Dartford if such an attraction were on display. Who wouldn't want to take a selfie in front of it. Maybe he could wear a Speedo with a couple of pubic hairs peeking out. That would add to the shock value, and The Stones are all about shock value.
I own a bronze. A miniature: 4commissioned &mine since the son of the artist was a friend of mine in high school. He’s soddered ( properly spelled soldered)the waxes- my 5th was a +1 which I only paid for bronzing.
A gift.
The Little F/kers.
All arms, legs, heads and a kitchen chair.
I love it.
By Chick Schwartz.
ps idk the real name- that’s what I’ve always called them.
I quite like The Kelpies. . . .
Bad public art has always been around. It's like bad music or bad movies. The bad stuff gets forgotten (or replaced) the good stuff lasts, so we think those in the past had a lot better taste than we do now.
And public art has always been something foisted on the public whether they liked it or not, and it's one of those odd human traits that we learn to like, even embrace, that which has been foisted on us and declared to represent us.
Folks do the same with sports teams all the time in our era too. We adapt to having pride in something because our brain perceives it as ours to have pride in, even if just because our taxes paid for someone else's ego and power and impositions.
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