More fun with statues

People just end up over-thinking this. One chap appears to find the Jen Reid statue almost as offensive as the Edward Colson one it (briefly) replaced.

From GQ (via Daily Mail):

So you don’t feel Quinn’s sculpture celebrated the protestor’s moment, nor supported the Black Lives Matter movement?

"Marc Quinn saw Jen Reid, actually a photograph of Jen [Reid] standing on Colston's plinth, on social media, I believe. And that's when he thought that it would make a great sculpture. He told the Guardian, “When I saw the picture of Jen on Instagram, I immediately thought it would be great to immortalise that moment. The image is a silhouette: she looked like a sculpture already.” It was the thinking and actions of some old-school documentary maker, or a trophy hunter. Quinn decided that he could control that image of Jen Reid. For her, that moment was one that felt right, that felt powerful, but it’s as if Quinn, by casting her in resin, and controlling her, is stealing that genuine moment away, claiming it as his own."

A statue means pretty much whatever you want it to mean. I prefer to just look at the skill, artistry and techniques. The Jen Reid statue is (was?) a masterpiece by any definition, and it has somehow managed to piss off a load of people as well. If I were in the sculpting game and looking for a quick win, I would cast a statue of two bestockinged legs sticking in the air and dump it a shallow part of Bristol Harbour (making sure it is not a hazard to boats, of course, always do your risk assessment!).

While I am on the topic, the Edward Colson statue was just as excellent on an artistic or technical level. The fact that nobody's really sure why it was put up 170 years after his death adds to the mystique. (Yes, he was a bastard, but we can't change facts or re-write history; whoever put the statue up was busily re-writing history as well). The Jen Reid statue is somehow very similar in overall look-and-feel:

I hope that Bristol council puts that statue back up again

On a technological and artistic level, the statue of Jen Reid is an absolute masterpiece.

Read how they did it, it is basically a 3D photograph.

Look at it close up, they've managed to capture every curl on her head and every stitch in her jacket.



If I were in the area, I'd definitely make a detour to see it.

(Knowing me, I'd completely trivialise the whole thing by getting Mrs W to take a photo of me standing in front of it with my black-gloved fist in the air, but hey. Art is about provoking a response and that would be my response).

"The Haywain" by John Constable

I had always assumed that the hay wagon in the famous painting was fording a shallow river that flows off between the trees in middle of the painting.

Mrs W and I visited National Trust, Flatford on Sunday, and took the obligatory 'gate crashing The Hay Wain' photo in front of the cottage, which still looks exactly the same.

Two things struck me:

1. That is not actually a river, it is a pond (or non-flowing side-arm of the actual river, or however you wish to describe it), which ends roughly where the trees in the middle of the painting are. Nobody would be daft enough to ford it, they'd just go round it, which would take about one minute. So the event he painted never happened.

UPDATE: Sobers' explains in the comments why the wagon is in the pond.

UPDATE: NT map:


2. While the cottage looks exactly as it did, the National Trust haven't bothered to install a hay wagon in the middle of the pond, which would enhance the overall visitor experience and make those photos all the more enjoyable. Especially if you could wade out and pose on it, like on the zebra crossing in Abbey Road.

Lest ye think this is some sort of sacrilege, there are precedents for this, i.e. statues commemorating something that never happened or somebody who never existed, which become visitor attractions in their own right, for example The Little Mermaid in Copenhagen harbour, Manneken Pis in Brussels or various Swords in the Stone dotted around anywhere with a vague connection to King Arthur. See also Waverley Station in Edinburgh.

"Export ban to stop £10m JMW Turner painting leaving UK"

From the BBC:

A temporary export bar has been placed on a £10m painting by one of the UK's most celebrated artists, JMW Turner. The masterpiece, The Dark Rigi, the Lake of Lucerne, depicts a scene in the Swiss mountains - but there are fears it could be exported for sale abroad.

Arts minister Rebecca Pow said it would be a "terrible loss to the whole country" if the painting went overseas. The export ban runs until 1 December, in the hope the money can be raised to buy it and keep it in the UK.

Why? Why is this any of the government's business? Why is this considered A Good Thing?

While Turner is indisputably one of the greats, I'd never heard of this particular painting, and I guess most people hadn't, ergo it would be no loss to most of us whatsoever. As long as somebody, somewhere is enjoying it, so be it.

The logical conclusion of this would be that British galleries would send back all paintings by French artists to France, by German artists to Germany etc and only display paintings by British artists. Which I think would make visiting galleries anywhere a lot less interesting. Ergo, this would be A Bad Thing. Is it not vastly preferable for each of the main galleries in every country to show paintings by artists from around the world?

An easy day's work for the courtroom sketch artist.

Scroll down to the picture in this fine Daily Mail article.

Disappointingly, no mention of what their house is worth. It's in north west London so must be a few bob.

Economic Myths: "Pumpkin artwork valued up to £600,000 smashed by selfie-taker"

From the BBC:

A visitor to the Infinity Mirrors art exhibition in Washington DC has lost his footing, reportedly whilst* taking a selfie, and fallen into one of Yayoi Kusama's signature polka-dot pumpkins...

A similar sculpture sold for almost $784,485 (£635,000) in 2015 according to Artnet.

Seeing as the sculptor is still alive (although getting on a bit), the "value" of the pumpkin depends entirely on the lower of a) how much the owner is prepared to pay for a replacement and b) what she will charge to sprinkle some holy water over a new one and certify it as an original.

What an earlier pumpkin sold for is neither here nor there.

If the owner of the collection of dozens of similar pumpkins decides that it makes no odds whether one is missing, then it's not worth that much; if the set has to consist of some magic number of pumpkins to be considered complete, the price she can charge for a new one is considerably higher etc.

If the artist is dead and there is no possibility of obtaining a new replacement, then the equation is different of course, that's just down to supply and demand between owners and would-be owners.

* "Whilst" can also mean "although", so the better word to use is "while".

Mourning Our Greats

This week we lost a couple of great creative people: Alan Rickman and David Bowie. Both huge figures in their field. Bowie, the theatrical, highly creative musician. Rickman, a great actor.

Personally, Bowie didn't hit me too hard. I have no doubt that he was a genius. But part of it, I think, is that his music never quite touched me like other music. It's well-crafted, it's interesting, he had a huge influence on other musicians, but I think maybe I like things that are a bit more soulful, or a bit more sexy.

I also think there's a thing about "our stuff" in there. I didn't grow up with Bowie at his peak. I started getting into music in a big way around 1981-2 and listening to the likes of Duran Duran, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Associates, U2 and New Order. Bowie was the music for people 5-10 years older than me. And I quite liked 1984's Let's Dance, but it wasn't exactly pushing my buttons. It wasn't really anything revolutionary if you'd heard Madonna and Michael Jackson.

On the other hand, despite only really recommending 3, maybe 4 of his films, I was moved by the death of Alan Rickman. Few actors are that great on screen, at having that ability to create a character and make them completely believable, where you just don't see the acting. I cracked open the Blu-Ray of Die Hard that I'd only recently bought and watched it and at no point do you think "actor playing Hans Gruber", you just see Hans Gruber. You also buy Bruce Willis as John McClane, but when has Bruce Willis played anything much outside of that?

But I think it's also that Rickman was in "my stuff". I saw Die Hard on VHS soon after it came out when I was about 21 or 22. I saw Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves at the cinema. We're much more connected to the art that we grow up, the stuff from around 13 to 35 than what's before or comes later.

Selfie Sticks

From the Telegraph

The Louvre is concerned about the increasingly popular gadgets being waved around within inches of the Mona Lisa and other famous paintings that tourists love to use as a backdrop for souvenir shots.
They are not yet banned at the museum, but a spokeswoman said: "Users must follow the rules and not point any objects at paintings, sculptures."

What's the point in going to an art gallery if you can't brag to your friends about it on Twitter? You might as well just go and see a movie.

Oh, the Irony

From the Graun

Since then, the Cheltenham business community has been attempting to raise funds to keep the piece, which had been sprayed with anti graffiti paint, in the town.

Angela De Souza, of Save The Banksy, a group of Cheltenham business owners, said a local millionaire had been in the process of buying the piece.

But on Friday morning, graffiti covering the artwork appeared, leaving locals in a "race against time" to save it.

Graffiti? Tell people it's done by Tracy Emin and everyone will be queueing up to buy it again as art.

Bad Investments

From Bristol Post

A BRISTOL woman who invested her life savings in a painting by disgraced celebrity Rolf Harris says she fears it has been devalued by up to 90 per cent.

Sarah Gardiner, 35, bought Horses at the Lights months before the star was arrested to provide some financial security when she retired.

Harris was sentenced to five years and nine months in prison today after he was found guilty of 12 counts of indecent assault.

Apart from the problem that you might be buying art whose value is linked to a TV personality who no-one cares about when it turns out they're a nonce, art in general is a very bad investment. When you factor in the person making commissions when they sell it to you, the person making commissions when you sell, insurance costs and so forth. You also have to consider that art generally goes out of fashion over time. It nearly all decreases in value except a few exceptional works.

One problem is that our media (both news, and the likes of Antiques Roadshow) talks about the winners and gives the impression that antiques are a good investment. Stick your money in a tracker or national savings. Buy the art you like.

Art News

From The Guardian and The BBC:

A dress used in a photograph to targets the issue of women's bottoms has been sold and will be removed from the model that was wearing it, a scaffolding company has claimed.

The creation shows a women holding a tennis racket and scratching her arse.

It appeared in Athena shops across the country, including one in West London, just a few miles from Wimbledon, where the UK's tennis tournament is held.

Artwork Left to Tate

From the BBC

The Tate found a painting in the skip outside, valued in the region of £0, by the young British Artist Cy Twombly of Class 2J of East Dulwich Primary School.

The pieces include three large hand paintings called Cy (age 6, 6 1/2 and 7) and five plasticine models of a rocket ship, a dragon, a monster, a car and an alien.

Cy's mother called it "stuff we had to get rid of. You can't keep it all, can you?"

"Nigella Lawson was so off her head on cocaine that she allowed her assistants to spend £300,000 on crap"

From The Daily Mail:

Charles Saatchi accused his former wife Nigella Lawson of being 'so off your heads on drugs' that she allowed their personal assistants to spend whatever they liked, a court heard.

Italian sisters Francesca and Elisabetta Grillo are accused of using company credit cards to spend £300,000 on over-hyped 'works of art' including an unmade bed and papier-maché sculptures of household objects...

"You couldn't give this crap away," fumed the multi-millionaire former advertising executive. "And they've filled our whole attic with this bullshit."

I'd love to have scripted that episode of her cookery show:

Nigella, huskily to camera: "If you've just come back from holiday in Amsterdam or Morrocco with a 'little something extra' in your luggage and you've invited friends round to celebrate, remember that they'll get peckish very quickly...

[Cutaway shot: Nigella holding a small brown-ish lump stuck on the end of a safety pin, just above a candle flame]

"It can be awkward deciding who pops out to the petrol station for crisps or chocolate cookies just when everybody's getting mellow, so why not rustle up your own beforehand?"

Turner Prize Art Gallery 'Targetted for crap artwork"

From the BBC:

An art gallery hosting paintings by Turner Prize nominees has been vandalised.

Threats were made against the Tate Modern, in London, if it did not remove the artwork, staff have confirmed.

Black paint was smeared over the shop window early on Tuesday morning, Metropolitan Police said.

The artists involved had been accused of being 'crap' by the public.

A police spokeswoman confirmed officers were called to reports of criminal damage at the gallery where it is suspected a man smeared paint on the window with his hands. She added that the gallery were now considering hanging the work as symbolic of the rage caused by incredulity, and will probably flog it to Maurice Saatchi for a few grand.

The force said it did not know the motive behind the vandalism and that millions of possible suspects are being considered.

Gallery staff confirmed it would continue to hang their paintings.