Mary Wollstonecraft memorial statue provokes mixed reaction

[salem]

Just seen this posted on FB
Someone has got at it already

View attachment 238248

Wait a minute, is that a facemask?!? I was out on the size by quite a few orders of magnitude

 

[blossie33]

Wait a minute, is that a facemask?!? I was out on the size by quite a few orders of magnitude

Yes, I think it is. I didn't realise the scale of it either!

 

[Cid]

Just seen this posted on FB
Someone has got at it already

View attachment 238248

Jesus, it is just... shit. I mean ignoring the mask and tape, that close-up really just brings home the... genericness... of it.

Shit and tiny.

 

[tim]

Yes. Mary Whitehouse.

 

[killer b]

Urban's not the best place to discuss modern art, is it?

Why do you think this?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Why do you think this?

It was mostly just a reaction to tim's post tbh.

 

[Thora]

I think whether this is good as a piece of art or not, it's not good as a statue of/commemorating Mary Wollstonecraft.

 

[baldrick]

It’s frustrating. I’d have got Halima Cassel on the job. But I can think of a few others that would be excellent... it’s just there’s a total dearth of imagination in public art commissioning. Apparently.

ooooh I love her! I went to her workshop the other week - man can she talk the hind legs off a donkey....

But yes agreed. Or something that actually looks like poor old Mary W instead of this terrible tiny naked woman.

 

[Cid]

Yes, I think it is. I didn't realise the scale of it either!

I mean... you have to wonder...

 

[Cid]

ooooh I love her! I went to her workshop the other week - man can she talk the hind legs off a donkey....

But yes agreed. Or something that actually looks like poor old Mary W instead of this terrible tiny naked woman.

/jealous

 

[Saul Goodman]

For all that money she could at least have been wearing a hat.

 

[platinumsage]

The face reminds me of someone, I can‘t quite place it. A man who went to public school I think.

 

[Cid]

The face reminds me of someone, I can‘t quite place it. A man who went to public school I think.

Max Pirkis in Rome (also Master and Commander).

 

[Espresso]

Whoever paid for that sculpture should be sacked. And ashamed.

 

[ska invita]

The Mary Wollstonecraft memorial statue has certainly provoked a mixed reaction

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Whoever paid for that sculpture should be sacked. And ashamed.

I paid for a very small part of it.

 

[Cid]

I paid for a very small part of it.

Randomly googling, there was a public vote at some point... did you participate?

Gotta say that the more I look at it, the less I like it. She deserves a fuck of a lot better.

 

[PursuedByBears]

I paid for a very small part of it.

You were robbed

 

[danny la rouge]

I paid for a very small part of it.

The tiny silver naked woman?

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Randomly googling, there was a public vote at some point... did you participate?

No I missed that. They’ve been fundraising for yonks and I’d forgotten about it tbh.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

The tiny silver naked woman?

My partner has been speculating that we may have paid for the tiny naked silver woman’s nose, or perhaps a nipple.

 

[Santino]

I'm so happy that the internet has a picture of this, it's the worst piece of public art i've personally ever seen, spotted earlier this year from a car in the outskirts of a town called Pilzen in the Czech Republic, surrounded by flats where people live, who have to see this every day. It is also huge.
View attachment 238238

Saturn Devouring His Son - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

So that explains that. No questions at this time.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

You were robbed

I am choosing to think that my lack of enthusiasm for the art is more than compensated by the entertainment and local outrage.

 

[platinumsage]

I hope this becomes a thing. A statue of a recently departed Prince Charles which is just a massive lump of rough granite with a tiny face on top that no one can see from the ground.

 

[Sue]

I am choosing to think that my lack of enthusiasm for the art is more than compensated by the entertainment and local outrage.

For anyone not familiar with the area, this is now a very chi chi part of town...

 

[sleaterkinney]

Interesting how it’s been covered up already, maybe by people not comfortable with a naked female body...

 

[baldrick]

Interesting how it’s been covered up already, maybe by people not comfortable with a naked female body...

No just people tired of women being naked in art.

Because it's not what we do that's important, it's what we look like. We must be decorative, even when representing a great thinker.

The more I consider it the more annoyed I am. This is a fucking travesty.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

For anyone not familiar with the area, this is now a very chi chi part of town...

I vividly remember an Evening Standard interview with one of the new restauranteurs in the noughties saying it had been “a no go area” until recently. And thinking well I go there to visit people who live there and I’m hardly Mad Max.

 

[Gerry1time]

"She said the critics had confused Wollstonecraft with the figure in the work."

Maybe that's because of the very large carving of Wollstonecraft's name across the plinth supporting the statue? Isn't that how the language of statuary works?

 

[Artaxerxes]

No just people tired of women being naked in art.

Because it's not what we do that's important, it's what we look like. We must be decorative, even when representing a great thinker.

The more I consider it the more annoyed I am. This is a fucking travesty.

"mother of feminism as represented by a tiny naked female form that isn't actually modelled on her" is certainly the wrong fucking tack to take isn't it?