Pregnant Nude On Plinth Provokes Puking

[SpencerH]

As I understand it, this will not be permanent since the 4th Plinth has had a variety of pieces atop it (including an unauthorized waxworks David Beckham). If that is correct, then I have no problem with it being exhibited there for a year or two.

BTW the 'runners up' for the position were ****e! http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/galle...104970,00.html

[lord of the mark]

"More fool John Willets- he can't have ever travelled anywhere in Europe where Jews were interned or shipped to concentration camps."


Im not sure what the above is in reference to.

"Perhaps he missed out on the installation of the memorial to 'Bomber' Harris too- I do seem to recall that causing just a degree of controversy."

Id say a public sculpture of Bomber Harris would be a mistake.

[Mr. Harley]

LOM - they already dedicated one to him, did you miss the controversy several years back? The Germans were a mite bit - nonplussed about it, shall we say.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Yes. It was really funny.

They didn't follow my suggestion of having his statue mooning in the general direction of Dresden.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

It's time we started tackling preconceptions about the limbless and profoundly disabled, anyway. I'm doing that right now in fact- I'm writing a screenplay for a film mostly featuring such people. It's a martial arts movie.

[duke o' york]

You could try remaking Escape to Victory to follow up on that!

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

My film would feature the least likely people to act violently towards other people.

I would have cripples and other assorted unfortunates forming an army of spackness and they would overthrow the government. Then they'd make normal people be their slaves and try and mate with all the lasses to gradually have an entire country of spastics and flids. I would lead a revolt and get the country back.

There'd be a massive "Game of Death," ending where I battle it up a tower to defeat the OverLord Spaz.

Level 1 - A flid with swords for arms
Level 2 - A blind albino with ginger dreads that whip around (I lose an eye in this fight)
Level 3 - Spiney Norman. A hunchback with big chin that I have to break off and stab him with.
Level 4 - Siamese twin whores. One black one white, joined at the hips but they are kung-fu experts with some fatal moves. During this fight I karate chop them apart making my fight much harder as there are now two ass-kicking *****es to defeat. I end up bashing their skulls in with a brick that I tear out of the wall.
Level 5 - King twin cocks. I am nearly bummed in this one but I rip his cocks off with my bare hands and strangle him with one of them.

Level 6 - The big mother****ing boss. A seven foot MS sufferer who has a flying spaz chariot with lasers and a shield thing. Not figured out how I kill him yet. But I do

[Drake Tungsten]

That's more like it.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
"More fool John Willets- he can't have ever travelled anywhere in Europe where Jews were interned or shipped to concentration camps."

Im not sure what the above is in reference to.

It was in reference to the notion that monumental sculptures or memorials can't or shouldn't be 'controversial'- as if somehow there's a huge national or public consensus about what is and isn't controversial or 'suitable' for memorializing.

Are you familiar with the trials and tribulations of Rachel Whiteread's Holocaust memorial in Vienna, for instance ?

Rachel Whiteread's Holocaust Memorial was dedicated in Vienna on Oct. 25 [see "Front Page," Dec. '96, Mar. '96]. Despite the rancor that had caused four years of delays, in the end, the memorial was embraced by former opponents, according to Austrian press accounts. The blocky concrete structure resembles an inside-out library, with the imprint of rows of books, spines facing in, lining the outer walls. Inscribed around the base are the names of Nazi concentration camps. The work's facade bears a dedication in German, Hebrew and English to the 65,000 Austrian Jews killed in the Holocaust.

Construction was held up by opposition from all sides: local residents protested that the structure was ugly, would take away their parking spaces and attract trouble; the Jewish community complained that it played on stereotypes of Jews being "people of the book"; Jorg Haider's right-wing Freedom Party simply didn't want it. Located in the middle of the Judenplatz, the memorial rests over the remnants of a synagogue that was burned down in 1421.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1248/is_1_89/ai_69058386

There was a facsinating documentary following her around what seemd like endless conferences, delays and debates in Austria.

Id say a public sculpture of Bomber Harris would be a mistake.

Too late- it's installed at the end of Strand, outside the church of St. Clement Danes.

The statue, which is located outside St Clement Dane’s RAF church, had to be kept under 24 hour guard for a period of months as it was often vandalised.

http://www.ukattraction.com/london/sir-arthur-bomber-harris-statue.htm

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by molly bloom


It was in reference to the notion that monumental sculptures or memorials can't or shouldn't be 'controversial'- as if somehow there's a huge national or public consensus about what is and isn't controversial or 'suitable' for memorializing.

Are you familiar with the trials and tribulations of Rachel Whiteread's Holocaust memorial in Vienna, for instance ?

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1248/is_1_89/ai_69058386

There was a facsinating documentary following her around what seemd like endless conferences, delays and debates in Austria.




Too late- it's installed at the end of Strand, outside the church of St. Clement Danes.



http://www.ukattraction.com/london/s...ris-statue.htm

other than haider it doesnt seem anyone opposed the notion of commemorating the holocaust. Haider represents a small minority, that is opposed to the shared values of Austrian society, IIUC. (shared need no mean unanimous) The local residents had mainly loigistaical concersns, not a matter of art. The symbolic concersn were on the part of the Jewish community. I would think it right to listen to those concerns, though im not sure i share them.

[The Mad Viking]

IW and Cockney

I have realised why I take issue with this. Trafalgar Square is not (or at least, should not, IMO be) an art gallery. It is a place where we have statues.

I hate to break it to you guys...

BUT...

Statues are art.

LotM

You can hardly call [i]Alison Lapper Pregnant[i] subversive for ignoring the Classical & Renaissance notion of the nude. Modern sculpture started subverting that one roughly a century ago. How much longer before we consider it officially "subverted"?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking
LotM

You can hardly call [i]Alison Lapper Pregnant[i] subversive for ignoring the Classical & Renaissance notion of the nude. Modern sculpture started subverting that one roughly a century ago. How much longer before we consider it officially "subverted"?

\

"nude descending a staircase " this aint. Theres a difference between the cubist and abstract attack on the traditional nude, and the use of classical, "realistic" representational techniques to present modesl whose appearance shocks. My impression (oh that word) was that this latter was largely the project of neo-expressionism. Was it in fact begun earlier? Im genuinely curious.

In either case, it doesnt seem like the subversion really "took" with the broader public.

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking
I hate to break it to you guys... BUT... Statues are art.

But they are art for a different purpose. Statues are (generally) not to make you ponder issues or question your own preconceptions, they're representations of a person, not an idea. The difference, I think, is important.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


other than haider it doesnt seem anyone opposed the notion of commemorating the holocaust. Haider represents a small minority, that is opposed to the shared values of Austrian society, IIUC. (shared need no mean unanimous) The local residents had mainly loigistaical concersns, not a matter of art. The symbolic concersn were on the part of the Jewish community. I would think it right to listen to those concerns, though im not sure i share them.

You are of course making several assumptions: that the rather flimsy 'reasons' given for opposing the memorial were actually valid, or were indeed the true 'reasons' for opposing the memorial.

One problem with resurgent anti-semitism in Austria post-1945, has been the willingness of some in the country to hide behind the victim card when accused of anti-semitism- because of the Anschluss they were 'victims' too- even the ones cheering German troops and the Austrians who willingly joined the S.S. and worked to subvert the Austrian state, presumably...

In any case, the criterion of monumental memorial art being controversial has been met- there and elsewhere, as graffiti on numerous memorials and monuments not to the taste of a few (or indeed a majority) across Europe.