Modern Monuments

[Lokasenna]

Somebody in another thread mentioned a giant, tacky illuminated cross that had been erected in their city as a monument, and that got me thinking about works of public art.

I'll admit I'm something of a sceptic when it comes to modern art. At university, I'm a ten minute drive from the Angel of the North:



Personally, I think it's hideous. It looms horribly over the otherwise very picturesque Durham dales. However, opinion is divided over its artistic merit.

Now, however, we come to Britain's latest planned piece of public art, the ArcelorMittal Orbit:



This thing is ostensibly being constructed to commemorate the Olympics, but I'm not quite sure how that works. It's going to cost an estimated £19million (and will doubtless go over budget), and at 377ft it will tower over everything else in that area of London. Also, not only do I think it hideous, but I'm also deeply unhappy that the wretched thing is going to be named after ArcelorMittal, Britain's largest company, which is owned by the world's fifth richest man. I understand that Lakshmi Mittal will be donating some of the material, but to a man of his wealth it will be a drop in the ocean, and he'll have this whacking great piece of advertising in the middle of London. Art should not be corporate!

I didn't like the Millenium Dome either, and the London Eye is, at best, passable. I'm all for public works of art - I think its important to leave something for the future - but the current trend seems to be towards the most horrible eyesores imaginable, designed to appeal only to the most pretentious and detached art critics, and not to the public.

So, what are your thoughts on public artworks? Any examples you would like to share - either good or bad?

[Scheherazade]

Loka,

The ArcelorMittal Tower (?) has been an ongoing discussion topic among my friends as well since the announcement. Can't help wonderinng why the UK seems to end up spending millions (and millions) of pounds for such projects that lack charm and some of these things (like "Angel of the North") make me want to cry.

If so much public money is to be spend, it sould at least be spent on something functional, I believe.

[kiki1982]

I don't know, I think those two you mentioned are rather wonderful, actually . I have seen a lot of sad 'art' in Belgium and this is quite alright.

About the name you are right, though, Mithal should not have this name on it just because he has sponsored it. His name will already go into history as 'sponsor of', so there is no need to name it after him...

I found the design of that tower quite nice, actually. A little Eiffel-Tower-esk but not a copy of it. I guess it'll end up like the Atomium in Brussels: a remnant of the World Expo in 1958. Everything is gone (or you can't see the buildings anymore for what they were: pavillions), but the atomium is still there to remind us. The Olympic Tower will also be like that: 'Once,' people will say, 'the Olympics were here, and there was the Olympic Village, and there... And everyone thought horrible things about his tower, but it has become a landmark.'

That said: In Leuven, the Belgian town where I as born, in front of the Universiy Library, there is a monument to research (and what is mostly done with it?) of a giant beetle pricked through with a giant needle that goes up into the air. I find it a wonderful artwork by a great Belgian artist called Jan Fabre who has done great things with sticking beetles on skulptures (not sure how nice that is for the beetles though, but he didn't do too many of them) and used parma ham for coating columns of a museum in Ghent (looked like real marble, amazing). There are of course people that find it horrible, but I rather like it.

[Niamh]

I really like the Angel of the North!
But as for that thing to corespond with the olympics... What are they thinking! Seriously!

In Dublin we have The Spire of Dublin (also known as the Monument of light)



It has many nicknames... Stilletto in the Ghetto being one of them.

its 398ft in height.

[MarkBastable]

I rather like the Angel of the North. I'm still thinking about the Olympic Doodle, but I agree with you about the name. The Eye, I think, is more an attraction than a monument, and it has grown on me. And the Dome is okay in context - the context being the completely unorganic and self-satisfied Docklands. I work there - and the Dome is the most interesting thing for miles.

Although part of the reason for such monuments is to provoke exactly this kind of discussion, it's time, I think, that decides. The Eiffel Tower was roundly vilified when it first went up.

“And during twenty years we shall see, stretching over the entire city, still thrilling with the genius of so many centuries, we shall see stretching out like a black blot the odious shadow of the odious column built up of riveted iron plates.”[12] Signers of this letter included Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, Charles Gounod, Charles Garnier, Jean-Léon Gérôme, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, and Alexandre Dumas. (Wikipedia)

That same article mentions Maupassant's declaration that the best restaurant in Paris was the one halfway up the Eiffel Tower, because it was the only one from which one couldn't see the Eiffel Tower.

I'm willing to bet that when Stonehenge went up, there were people huddled round fires mixing up the next day's woad and saying that it was a blot on the plainscape and what the hell was it supposed to be, anyway, and why couldn't they have just carved a nice white horse like that one in Uffington, you can't go wrong with a white horse, can you? Lovely, that.

Though apparently you can go wrong with a white horse. The proposed southern equivalent of the Angel of the North is this, which will stand in Kent... It's straightforwardly representational, absolutely comprehensible - and local people voted for it too. But someone won't like it.

Oh, hang on. It's me.

[OrphanPip]

Ug my least favorite in Montreal would be the Biosphere. Built by the Americans for the World Fair in '69, and now pretty much the only thing left of the Expo grounds.

The city had this clever idea of putting an aquarium in it, so for a while it housed Montreal's large public aquarium with a good deal of expensive fish. Then the aquarium workers decided to form a union and go on strike, all the fish died and the city refused to replace them. Now it contains some sort of ecological museum about the local river, I've never been.



The Olympic Stadium is pretty horrible too, it's in the middle of the ghetto. When it was built it was the world's largest opening stadium roof, it worked once at the opening ceremonies and subsequently broke. They never fixed it and then the frigging roof collapsed and they replaced it with a non-opening one.



Of course, there's also the tacky cross mentioned before.

[TheFifthElement]

I think it's just a matter of taste Loka. Now I'm no art critic but I totally love The Angel of the North, and I was pretty fond of The B of the Bang:



before it was dismantled, although that is partly because it leant itself to the idea of football fans being impaled on it which is always an appealing thought. And I find Jodrell Bank aesthetically pleasing and Lloyds of London and Blackpool Tower and the bullet train and wind turbines, which of course many people think are eyesores (but forget that powerstations don't look very appealing out of your back window either), and electricity pylons. And I also find the wild moors appealing and lakes and forests and so on. And people and otters and those sorts of things. All are good, in their own ways. Conversely I find the Cow Parade and Super lamb banana things really irritating. There's no sense to it, it's just the way it is.

As to the ArcelorMittal Orbit, well I'm not fond of it. I'm not sure what they're trying to say with it although as a representation of modern British society perhaps it has a point. Who knows? Perhaps it will look different when it's built, it is often hard to tell. I don't especially object to it carrying the name of its corporate benefactor either. Britain has a fairly longstanding tradition of permitting rich benefactors to put their name on public buildings - the John Rylands Library (which I also like) being an example which immediately springs to mind - so this isn't really much different to that. I guess we're just not used to it anymore.

At least it looks like it'd be fun to climb.

[Katy North]

I don't think the orbit will be so bad... though I do agree with Schezernade that the fact that they're using public funds to build it is foolish. If this Mittal guy wants it named after him, he should pay for the whole thing gosh darn it!

I also rather like the Spire of Dublin, though personally, I think the Angel of the North looks like someone decided to bang a figure out of a bunch of rusty old dust bins and call it art. Maybe it's more impressive in person...

[TheFifthElement]

Oh, and I just remembered these:



on Crosby beach near Liverpool. I kind of like these too, but they amuse me more because people kept ringing the RNLI when the tide came in, thinking it was someone stuck in the sand. Made me smile

[LitNetIsGreat]

No, I don't like bits of twisted rusty metal that often passes for art. Give me a smooth marble figure any day...

[Lulim]

Perhaps, it's only my old-fashined view of things, but I do have the impression that there seems to be some kind of competition in creating ugliness, just to call for attention. Small, subtle details wouldn't be noticed anymore. Moreover, the handiwork becomes increasingly sloppy (not just in terms of art but in almost every area of life). There are instances where artwork started to crumble only three years after construction. What is to be made of it when not even the artist himself doesn't consider his/her work worthwhile to put some effort in?

Subjecting food to decay by converting it to "art" is, in my opinion, pure decadence, derision to millions of starving people.

[TheFifthElement]

We also have this:

at the entrance to our village. He's lovely. One day we'll burn a policeman in him.

[MarkBastable]

Moreover, the handiwork becomes increasingly sloppy (not just in terms of art but in almost every area of life). There are instances where artwork started to crumble only three years after construction.

That has always happened. I'd cite the pre-Raphaelite murals in Oxford.

The Oxford Union murals (1857–1859) are a series of mural decorations in the Oxford Union library building. The series was executed by a team of Pre-Raphaelite artists including Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones. The paintings depict scenes from Arthurian myth.

The process of painting the murals was notoriously chaotic. Ruskin said that the artists were "all the least bit crazy and it's very difficult to manage them."[2] As the murals were painted directly onto the wall without plaster or adequate underpainting they began to suffer decay very quickly.[2] William Morris later completely repainted his design for the ceiling. (Wikipedia)

There are other examples - but, by definition, there are many, many more examples that we don't know about, because the work didn't survive to tell us it didn't survive. But it's not a modern phenomenon.

[kiki1982]

@TheFitfthElement:

Permit me to say that I find that looks suspiciously like The Angel of the North... It doesn't mean it is bad, but artists should be creative, right?

About that horse:

I find that... hmm, how to say. It fits in its surroundings of fields, it is big enough to be seen, it is well made (if it'll look like its animation), but if it is an over-sized sculpture of a horse, genuinely coloured like a horse, what is the point of it? There are enough sculptures of kings on horses that there needs to be no other one without its jockey... Give me the cows in all funky colours of that Belgian (?) artist any day...

Yes, sloppy handy-work... I suppose it makes a point about 'decay'? One can always find an explanation...

I very much like wind turbines actually. They give a very calming regular movement in the background. Much better than those ugly electricity plants (whether nuclear or not). Oh, but Battersea is rather nice, not to mention the Tate. But those wonderful times of sturdy industrial real English building with detail are over .

That has always happened. I'd cite the pre-Raphaelite murals in Oxford.

The Oxford Union murals (1857–1859) are a series of mural decorations in the Oxford Union library building. The series was executed by a team of Pre-Raphaelite artists including Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones. The paintings depict scenes from Arthurian myth.

The murals were commissioned by John Ruskin and the subject was probably chosen as a result of earlier Pre-Raphaelite interest in Arthurian themes, such as the illustrations to Edward Moxon's 1857 edition of Tennyson.[1] In addition to Rossetti, Morris and Burne-Jones, several other artists agreed to contribute. These were the painters Val Prinsep, Arthur Hughes, J.H. Pollen, John Roddam Spencer Stanhope and the sculptor Alexander Munro.[2]

The process of painting the murals was notoriously chaotic. Ruskin said that the artists were "all the least bit crazy and it's very difficult to manage them."[2] As the murals were painted directly onto the wall without plaster or adequate underpainting they began to suffer decay very quickly.[2] William Morris later completely repainted his design for the ceiling. (Wikipedia)

There are other examples - but, by definition, there are many, many more examples that we don't know about, because the work didn't survive to tell us it didn't survive. But it's not a modern phenomenon.

Haha. They wanted to know it better like Leonardo Da Vinchi as he painted his Last Supper with his latest experimental technique. They are still fighting to keep it on the wall as the paint is comming off...
Fortunately, he only tried that tehnique once, because it didn't work...

[TheFifthElement]

@TheFitfthElement:

Permit me to say that I find that looks suspiciously like The Angel of the North... It doesn't mean it is bad, but artists should be creative, right?

I didn't say it was original, only that it was nice And it was funny when someone attached 3 appropriately shaped balloons to its nether regions. And for a while they tried to train ivy up it, an experiment which has now been abandoned, which made it look like it had hairy legs.

Actually even The Angel of the North follows in the footsteps of the Celtic traditional wicker man (hence the reference to burning policemen) so probably isn't that original. But it is big (and beautiful)!

I very much like wind turbines actually. They give a very calming regular movement in the background. Much better than those ugly electricity plants (whether nuclear or not). Oh, but Battersea is rather nice, not to mention the Tate. But those wonderful times of sturdy industrial real English building with detail are over .

Hehehe, we must have similar taste kiki. I like the Tate and Battersea as well.