BBC Eric Gill paedo statue attacked

[JimW]

Probably hung the mask up too.

 

[SpookyFrank]

All this 'it's a work of art, it should be in a museum' stuff, are people looking at a completely different statue? It's fucking foul. It'd still be foul even if the sculptor wasn't a nonce.

Given that he was a nonce though, artistic merit shouldn't even be a consideration. All power to the people trying to smash it. Whatever their motivations, the act itself is just and necessary.

 

[xenon]

has it still not been smashed up?

I'm fine with some artworks being destroyed BTW. Art is not some unique catagry of artifacts that that should be held, revered and beyond reach of a cultural critique. Even if that critique is robust or one I may not personally agree with. Better it is taken down and languishes in some dusty basement but if it remains on show in public, the public will react.
And yeah, I'm fine with this one being smashed up if that wasn't clear

 

[Chilli.s]

BBC should have taken the hints on this years ago, and flogged it off

 

[Elpenor]

A statue by a nonce seems so apt for the BBC given all of their past and present nonce connections

 

[Spymaster]

Indeed. If I'd known I might have had a go myself.

You probably wouldn't need the scaffold.

 

[Brainaddict]

It's happening again. I'm aware that I probably agree with this protestor about very little but I completely agree with him about this.

Man arrested after hammer attack on Eric Gill statue at BBC’s Broadcasting House

Man in Spider-Man mask scaled London headquarters in apparent protest against paedophile sculptor

www.theguardian.com

​

The weird thing about that story is it entirely fails to mention that the statue is of a man holding a naked child to his crotch. Which seems...I dunno, relevant?

 

[Pickman's model]

i see a lot about this statue but fuck all about the fonts he designed which are on pretty much every windows machine i've used. thought people would have something to say about those

 

[Pickman's model]

The weird thing about that story is it entirely fails to mention that the statue is of a man holding a naked child to his crotch. Which seems...I dunno, relevant?

no one has ever said afaik whether this was his response to 'do us a statue' or if he was given a more detailed commission - how free he was with the form the work took

 

[danny la rouge]

i see a lot about this statue but fuck all about the fonts he designed which are on pretty much every windows machine i've used. thought people would have something to say about those

The issue isn’t that he was a paedophile and so all his work should be cancelled. The issue is that this is a paedophile statue. The allegory is right there in its name and the choice of how to portray Arial. That the BBC still choses it as its emblem is baffling.

 

[Pickman's model]

The issue isn’t that he was a paedophile. The issue is that this is a paedophile statue. The allegory is right there in its name and the choice of how to portray Arial.

ariel. arial is a font

 

[danny la rouge]

ariel. arial is a font

Fair enough.

 

[tim]

i see a lot about this statue but fuck all about the fonts he designed which are on pretty much every windows machine i've used. thought people would have something to say about those

Gill Sans-Comment

 

[Pickman's model]

The issue isn’t that he was a paedophile and so all his work should be cancelled. The issue is that this is a paedophile statue. The allegory is right there in its name and the choice of how to portray Arial. That the BBC still choses it as its emblem is baffling.

not to mention that 'ariel' was for years the staff magazine of the corporation, may still be for all i know

 

[Throbbing Angel]

BBC should have taken the hints on this years ago, and flogged it off

or done a Channel 4

 

[pogofish]

BBC should have taken the hints on this years ago, and flogged it off

I doubt that would have been a possibility - Given the statue's size and placement, it would almost certainly be considered part of the architectural fabric/context of the building, which has been Grade-2 listed since the 1980s.

Broadcasting House , Non Civil Parish - 1265570 | Historic England

List entry 1265570. Grade II* Listed Building: Broadcasting House . May include summary, reasons for designation and history.

historicengland.org.uk

Yup - Gill's work features heavily in the reasons for listing:

Offices and studios for the British Broadcasting Corporation (north extension not of special interest). 1930-32 by Col. G Val Myer and Watson Hart, relief panels by Eric Gill and Gilbert Bayes, etc. Portland stone on steel frame. Long frontage to Portland Place, rounded end with main entrance to Langham Place and eastern return. Shallow modelling to stepped facades in mixed Modernist-Georgian monumental style. Nine storeys with four to six storey corner clock tower pavilion massing. 35-window range to Portland Place and seven window wide rounded clock tower end. Main entrance to Langham Place has bronze doors under massive lintel and Eric Gill's "Prospero and Ariel" in niche above. The terminal pavilions to Portland Place have a shop front to south and entrance to north both surmounted by relief panels. Vertically proportioned shallow recessed metal glazing bar casements. Seven "porthole" windows in centre of top attic storey to Portland Place. Upper storeys recessed at various levels with metal balustrades at set-backs. Latticework masts over clock tower and behind. Inside the foyer the windows are flanked by pilasters with glass capitals and cornice carrying lights; Eric Gill's "The Sower" set opposite the entrance. The original, innovatory McGrath, Wells Coates, Chermayeff, etc. interiors and studio fittings removed. Thirties Exhibition Catalogue. Britain in the Thirties; A.D.Profile.

 

[Yossarian]

Not sure how good this guy is at destroying statues but his kerning is impressive

 

[pogofish]

I see it being reported that this guy is an ex F4J protestor and has expressed recent support for Andrew Tate.

And he appears to be the same guy who was lifted for damaging the statue last year.

Is Batboy or whatever still active on the boards, or are they one and the same?

 

[Yossarian]

An Andrew Tate fan? Best-case scenario here might be if the statue topples to the ground, crushing him under it

 

[SpookyFrank]

Not sure how good this guy is at destroying statues but his kerning is impressive

View attachment 375388

I've got to take a point off for the US spelling of 'epicentre' though.

 

[Cid]

I've no idea what a 'peadophile' is either.

 

[SpookyFrank]

He was up there over 12 hours before the filth could get him down. Hopefully he's put the rancid fucking thing beyond repair.

 

[krtek a houby]

not to mention that 'ariel' was for years the staff magazine of the corporation, may still be for all i know

Afaik, it was discontinued about a decade ago...

 

[krtek a houby]

A statue by a nonce seems so apt for the BBC given all of their past and present nonce connections

A bit unfair to the many thousands of people who have worked to there over the years.

But yeah, the statue should have been removed.

 

[Elpenor]

A bit unfair to the many thousands of people who have worked to there over the years.

I disagree with this. As an institution they’ve covered up not only their own nonces, including those who’ve not yet been exposed, but also as state media have turned a blind eye to the ones in the rest of the establishment.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

There are a lot of offensive statues in London. This one's a long way down my list. Take a wonder down Whitehall and take your pick.

Fuck this prick and his stupid obsession.

 

[krtek a houby]

I disagree with this. As an institution they’ve covered up not only their own nonces, including those who’ve not yet been exposed, but also as state media have turned a blind eye to the ones in the rest of the establishment.

Am talking about the workers... drivers, runners, cleaners, IT staff, reception staff, post workers, librarians, archivists, technicians, camera operators, kitchen staff, porters, assistants, and many more who are not the bosses or the "talent".

The workers haven't covered up anything.

 

[savoloysam]

Any other "line of business" would have been banished to the void for allowing JS to get away with what he did for so long. Bang off the map, gone, never to be seen again. How the BBC and the shadow figures that run it for years got away with it is fucking beyond me.

You can stick your state broadcaster up your fucking arses.

 

[andysays]

Not sure how good this guy is at destroying statues but his kerning is impressive

View attachment 375388

There may be something going on behind the banner that I'm missing, but I can't see anything particularly pedophilic about that statue, unless someone wants to argue that any depiction of a naked small figure (I believe they're supposed to be some sort of fairy or sprite, rather than a human child) with a clothed adult is automatically dodgy.

Clearly, Gill himself did some abhorrent things, but that doesn't make this statue a depiction of pedophilia.

 

[JimW]

There may be something going on behind the banner that I'm missing, but I can't see anything particularly pedophilic about that statue, unless someone wants to argue that any depiction of a naked small figure (I believe they're supposed to be some sort of fairy or sprite, rather than a human child) with a clothed adult is automatically dodgy.

Clearly, Gill himself did some abhorrent things, but that doesn't make this statue a depiction of pedophilia.

Bit the other way round surely, hard to believe a paedophile's representation of a naked prepubescent form is a bit of innocent whimsy when it very much resembles a child.