BBC Eric Gill paedo statue attacked

[LDC]

Hate the hammerer, love the hammering.

I'm not sure about the simplicity of that tbh. Won't the hammering fuel and give justification to the movement and group that the person that did it is from?

 

[danny la rouge]

I'm not sure about the simplicity of that tbh. Won't the hammering fuel and give justification to the movement and group that the person that did it is from?

No, the BBC leaving the statue up did that.

 

[pogofish]

How well known/widely known though?

And now much (genuinely!) better known will Gilll's disgusting behaviour become, when someone attacks the statue like this?

To my memory, Gill's abuses first became known in that period in the very early 1980s, when the press/media attitudes to abuse/paedo matters was far more ambivalent than it was to become by the mid-decade, so maybe not as well known as it could have been?

I also remember that McCarthy took quite a bit of flack for having the temerity to expose such a "great artist" at the time - not least because one or two of his victims were still alive.

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

I said it's not entirely down to his paedophilia. He may have had a large live following (concert halls rather than stadia though) but his records weren't played. It was easier to scrub him from the record as a result - much easier than Michael Jackson who's enduring appeal was much more significant (but who is nonetheless starting to disappear now I think)

I just tested this on my 12 year old. Can confirm. Michael Jackson is not cool.

 

[LDC]

No, the BBC leaving the statue up did that.

Maybe. I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other tbh. Something about the connections with all the far/alt right stuff and its obsession with the BBC and the QAnon stuff, and this coming so quickly after the Colston thing, makes me feel quite unclear about it all.

 

[danny la rouge]

Maybe. I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other tbh. Something about the connections with all the far/alt right stuff and its obsession with the BBC and the QAnon stuff, and this coming so quickly after the Colston thing, makes me feel quite unclear about it all.

My opinion on the statue dates from before this incident. But I can understand someone coming to it fresh might have trouble.

For me, it’s not “get rid of all artwork by nonces”, but the fact - as maomao so eloquently said - that this is a “noncey statue by a nonce”.

In this instance the artist has not separated his paedophilia from the artwork. He chose to portray Arial as a naked child. He was making a statement. The naked child has been freed by Prospero and is now in his service.

 

[danny la rouge]

I am going to watch the Forbidden Planet today, though.

 

[LDC]

My opinion on the statue dates from before this incident. But I can understand someone coming to it fresh might have trouble.

For me, it’s not “get rid of all artwork by nonces”, but the fact - as maomao so eloquently said - that this is a “noncey statue by a nonce”.

In this instance the artist has not separated his paedophilia from the artwork. He chose to portray Arial as a naked child. He was making a statement. The naked child has been freed by Prospero and is now in his service.

Yeah, I am totally new to this issue, have heard of the artist but not this statue or the issues around it, so sorry if I'm blundering about with things that are obvious to others.

Do you have no concerns about the flattening of historical and political differences between this and the Colston statue, and the power this event might give to the far/alt right with their obsession on this issue?

 

[two sheds]

I presume it'll be down to juries though. Also if they damage Marx's grave statue (for example) - but they'd have more difficulty justifying that.

 

[danny la rouge]

Yeah, I am totally new to this issue, have heard of the artist but not this statue or the issues around it, so sorry if I'm blundering about with things that are obvious to others.

Do you have no concerns about the flattening of historical and political differences between this and the Colston statue, and the power this event might give to the far/alt right with their obsession on this issue?

I do have concerns that the issue has been hijacked by the conspiracy-right. And I do see a difference between this statue and the Colston statue. But neither of those points are enough to make me want to defend the nonce allegory.

 

[danny la rouge]

I presume it'll be down to juries though. Also if they damage Marx's grave statue (for example) - but they'd have more difficulty justifying that.

Yeah, I think even the dimmest light can see the difference between a grave monument and a public statue.

 

[two sheds]

Yeah, I think even the dimmest light can see the difference between a grave monument and a public statue.

I can imagine a few armed with hammers that wouldn't though.

 

[danny la rouge]

I can imagine a few armed with hammers that wouldn't though.

Oh, I can too. I’ve seen that wee grifting laddie’s Twitter.

 

[platinumsage]

There’s an Engels statue in Manchester ripe for defacement:

Manchester has a Soviet statue of Engels. Shame no one asked the city’s Ukrainians | Kevin Bolton

The monument is a piece of propaganda. Efforts to celebrate it have ignored the voices of all those Mancunians who suffered under communism• Kevin Bolton is an archives consultant living in Stockport

www.theguardian.com

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

Maybe. I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other tbh. Something about the connections with all the far/alt right stuff and its obsession with the BBC and the QAnon stuff, and this coming so quickly after the Colston thing, makes me feel quite unclear about it all.

Maybe we should put up some more nonse statues just to stick it to the right. I'm sure it will be a really popular movement.

 

[Raheem]

There’s an Engels statue in Manchester ripe for defacement:

Manchester has a Soviet statue of Engels. Shame no one asked the city’s Ukrainians | Kevin Bolton

The monument is a piece of propaganda. Efforts to celebrate it have ignored the voices of all those Mancunians who suffered under communism• Kevin Bolton is an archives consultant living in Stockport

www.theguardian.com

It was put there by Phil Collins, apparently.

 

[discokermit]

And yet the same rules don’t apply to Polanski

they do for me. burn his films, the shitty little nonce.

 

[killer b]

Maybe we should put up some more nonse statues just to stick it to the right. I'm sure it will be a really popular movement.

I dunno, maybe it might be worthwhile to be able to discuss the differences between the statues and the politics around it without this kind of silliness?

 

[Yossarian]

I also remember that McCarthy took quite a bit of flack for having the temerity to expose such a "great artist" at the time - not least because one or two of his victims were still alive.

She remained a big fan of his work - in 2006, she argued that instead of destroying Gill's reputation, her biography had led to a new surge of interest in Gill and a deeper understanding of his work. She admitted, however:

Having read Gill's own account of his experimental sexual connections with his dog in a later craft community at Pigotts near High Wycombe, his woodcut The Hound of St Dominic develops some distinctly disconcerting features.

Fiona MacCarthy on Eric Gill's life and art

Eric Gill's reprehensible private life would doubtless land him in prison today. But does that mean we should value his sculpture less? After all, writes Fiona MacCarthy, the two sides of the man are inextricably linked.

www.theguardian.com

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

I dunno, maybe it might be worthwhile to be able to discuss the differences between the statues and the politics around it without this kind of silliness?

Ridiculous suggestion

 

[Pickman's model]

To my memory, Gill's abuses first became known in that period in the very early 1980s, when the press/media attitudes to abuse/paedo matters was far more ambivalent than it was to become by the mid-decade, so maybe not as well known as it could have been?

I also remember that McCarthy took quite a bit of flack for having the temerity to expose such a "great artist" at the time - not least because one or two of his victims were still alive.

1989 apparently

 

[Pickman's model]

It was put there by Phil Collins, apparently.

reason enough to dispose of it

 

[killer b]

Having read Gill's own account of his experimental sexual connections with his dog in a later craft community at Pigotts near High Wycombe, his woodcut The Hound of St Dominic develops some distinctly disconcerting features.

I'm not really sure it does tbf

 

[pogofish]

1989 apparently

That was when McCarthy's bio came out IIRC - Which was some years after his archive (in the US?) was forced to start releasing the papers/diaries they had been keeping out of public view.

There was already quite some disquiet about him and his work going about when I was at college - from 1983.

 

[MickiQ]

reason enough to dispose of it

Phil Collins the artist not the former lead singer of Genesis they are two separate people

 

[Pickman's model]

That was when McCarthy's bio came out IIRC - Which was some years after his archive (in the US?) was forced to start releasing the papers/diaries they had been keeping out of public view.

Let's agree on many years after his death

 

[Pickman's model]

Phil Collins the artist not the former lead singer of Genesis they are two separate people

One should be Phil, the other Philip, to avoid this sort of confusion

 

[pogofish]

Let's agree on many years after his death

Absolutely!

 

[Raheem]

Phil Collins the artist not the former lead singer of Genesis they are two separate people

They're two hearts living in just one mind.

 

[Pickman's model]

Absolutely!

So for at least 30 years and possibly nearly 60 his depravity has been known about