Statues... What You Got?

[Tony Tony Tony]

I don't know much about art etc.  However my town has this pair of characters marooned on a roundabout in the middle of an industrial estate. (For art aficionados they are called 'The Flying Men' by Elizabeth Frink).

I pass them often and am quite fond of them. The rascally locals often feeston them in amusing ways, football scarfs, shopping bags and recently face masks.

Wot y'all got?   

[Jockice]

Women Of Steel. Which are women made out of steel.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Preston has one outside the Student's Union (which I cannot find a picture of) that I like to call "The Razzle Pileup".

[PlanktonSideburns]

we got this lad, who is Lywellyn ap gruffydd,



rich landowner and party animal who supported the last prince of wales owain glyndwr in his violent war for indepenance, and got torn to shreds in front of his children by the cunt henry 4.0. hes actually from neighbouring cylycwm, but they got no castle, so no statue, loosers. was said of him that he "willingly preferred death to treachery", fair play to him.

would have been cool if the statue was of him getting torn to bits infront of his family, but i understand the council's objections to my proposal, even if they are wrong. 7/10 statue

then theres this one of a welsh drover:



love this one, as this is how i like to imagine the old timey sheep people: stinking 3rd gen wax covered coat that stands up by its self, steely, shortarsed hard-bastards, getting battered by the rain, rolling around with bandits in quarries on the way home with a year's worth of sheep money stuffed down their pants. this is the sort of statue i like: ones of the little man 9/10 statue

[PlanktonSideburns]

also love the one of aneurin bevan in cardiff looking rotound and determined, an imovable dwarfish object in a world of treacherous elves 10/10 statue

[Dex Sawash]

Top these testes fuckos

[bgmnts]

Fair play that drover has some large feet.

[PlanktonSideburns]

Fair play that drover has some large feet.

its for stuffing all that london money in after driving all your sheep downtown at the end of the year
and for kicking in the heads of the banditos who try it on on the way home, Twm Sion Cati tried that shit on him back in the day, those big drover boots booted him so hard he had to live in a cave in rhandyrmwyn. thats a fuckin dark side of the valley, that

first bank in wales was started in this town, drovers being the first welsh lads to understand the value of not having to carry all your cash round with you. would love to be there when one of those tri-corner chancers jumed out from behind a hedge, and evans was all like 'not your lucky life boy, its all online now, youle have to go sell yourself on onlyfans to get on now'

there are now no banks in llandovery, first time since the first bank got put together. the bank has been the site of the worst pub in the town for most of my life. not the shittest, roughest pub, but the most lifeless, conglomorate owned depressing atmos draining place. probably the ghosts of all them bankers

farmers wear trainers now mostly, subsidised to the point of vegetation, rotting, looking at their father's tools, only vauge comprehension. rotting fences and forgotten histories, they get all their food from the co-op, their sheep lack purpose

[studpuppet]

I cycled round Harlow New Town during the summer (holiday to take but nowhere to go). They've got something like 100 scupltures dotted around the place, most near the civic/town centre, but my favourites were:

1. Barbara Hepworth's Contrapuntal Forms in front of some social housing (council tried to re-house it but the residents fought for it to remain in its original position).




2. Big fuck-off metal woman (Energise by Clare Bigger) outside the leisure centre.




3. Black Lives Matter (Leon Underwood's Not In Anger) in the middle of a down-at-heel shopping centre.




4. Julia by Gerda Rubenstein - the original was sited here until some twat of a resident reversed into it and knocked it over, Now it's a cast (original now in the town museum).

[PlanktonSideburns]

fuck those are all great - did you take those pictures?

Julia's pose is great - not enough statues look like theyre feeling really good about themselves, or are in their natural element

Contrapuntal Forms look like ones egging the other one on to talk to someone they fancy

Energise is clearly running back to the house party with a satellite dish

and the black power hand is real cool too

[bgmnts]

Was Energise made after Terminator 2 or before?

[Rizla]

One of these 6 Anthony Gormley lads stands in a nondescript stretch of the water of leith behind some warehouses near me, quite like it I suppose.


Leith also boasts the only statues of Queen Victoria and Robert Burns in Edinburgh.


(The window in the bottom left is my old living room)



I'm just old enough to remember this bit of modern urban art that stood in a roundabout at the top of Leith Walk - it had all coloured fluorescent tubes that were meant to change colour in the wind but it never worked, everyone hated it and it got binned around 84/85.



There's a quite good Paolozzi sculpture of a big foot there now to make up for it.



Mostly army cunts on horses apart from that.

[studpuppet]

fuck those are all great - did you take those pictures?

Yes - a little Rollei 35 with some Ilford XP2 B/W film which is cheap to process because a colour developing machine can do it.

Was Energise made after Terminator 2 or before?

After (2010)


A couple more photos:

Another view of Contrapuntal Forms




Chiron by Mary Spencer Watson




Upright Motive No. 2 by Henry Moore[nb]His studio is in a village down the road, so not surprising he's represented here.[/nb]




Family Group by Henry Moore




Eve by Auguste Rodin (yes, that Rodin)




Well worth going on a walk if you're ever at a loose end, especially if like me, you're fascinated by how well you can fuck up New Town planning from a standing start.

https://www.harlow.gov.uk/sites/default/files/documents/Harlow%20Sculpture%20Trail.pdf

[idunnosomename]

Preston has one outside the Student's Union (which I cannot find a picture of) that I like to call "The Razzle Pileup".

where's this? i can rant about the Martyrs' Memorial



four men were killed in 1842 and what we get is three gumbies getting shot in the goolies


kids swing off the rifles though



i hate trad statues to great man but this is somehow even shittier. i mean purely aesthetically it's not too bad but it's got so little to do with the historical event it's kinda offensive imo

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

The one I'm on about is near 53 Degrees. It's on the pavement on that street.

[Buelligan]

its for stuffing all that london money in after driving all your sheep downtown at the end of the year
and for kicking in the heads of the banditos who try it on on the way home, Twm Sion Cati tried that shit on him back in the day, those big drover boots booted him so hard he had to live in a cave in rhandyrmwyn. thats a fuckin dark side of the valley, that

first bank in wales was started in this town, drovers being the first welsh lads to understand the value of not having to carry all your cash round with you. would love to be there when one of those tri-corner chancers jumed out from behind a hedge, and evans was all like 'not your lucky life boy, its all online now, youle have to go sell yourself on onlyfans to get on now'

there are now no banks in llandovery, first time since the first bank got put together. the bank has been the site of the worst pub in the town for most of my life. not the shittest, roughest pub, but the most lifeless, conglomorate owned depressing atmos draining place. probably the ghosts of all them bankers

farmers wear trainers now mostly, subsidised to the point of vegetation, rotting, looking at their father's tools, only vauge comprehension. rotting fences and forgotten histories, they get all their food from the co-op, their sheep lack purpose

Still, fair play to you, you got some nice twisties for a Buell between you and Brecon, up by Halfway, lovely stuff, with the hazel and the little river running past.

[buttgammon]

This one had to be moved because she was constantly being vandalised:



Some strange person was prosecuted for repeatedly vandalising him:



Why would you bother vandalising statues when this monstrously awful sculpture of Wilde effectively vandalises itself?

[timebug]

There are a bunch of 'heads' peeping from the ground,aroumnd a tree in one of our local roads. My avatar is in fact, one of them! They were made to commemorate a prison escape, by tunnel from what was then our local gaol. It has since been a greyhound racing track, and is currently a gated community for poshoes with more money than sense.

[cosmic-hearse]

Cheeky Henry Moore in Greenwich Park. These look much better in situ than in a museum.



A very literal Catford monument, built as part of Owen Luder's redevelopment of the area

[Spoon of Ploff]

This fella in Waterfields Recreation Ground, Watford.



I like him because blue tits have been known to nest in his head.

[cosmic-hearse]

There's also this in Lewisham, which looks very postwar but was actually erected in the grim postmodern interregnum 1990s, surprisingly.

The building it sits outside is an former office block turned apartments. It was one of Harlow town planner Frederick Gibberd's last buildings and is quite lovely.



Some nice Louis Kahn-style details here

[Buelligan]

This fella in Waterfields Recreation Ground, Watford.



I like him because blue tits have been known to nest in his head.

We have an late eighteenth century cookie-cutter metal Jesus on the Cross with blue tits nesting in a hole in his back.  It makes me happy to imagine their brexitised bretheren doing similar.

[Voltan (Man of Steel)]

Beth's Arch off the Black Country Route. Named after Elisabeth, the huge blast furnace at Bilston Steelworks that dominated the local skyline until it was decommissioned and torn down in 1980.

[dissolute ocelot]

Glenrothes is the place to be (ironically they also manufacture guided bombs there)!

[Thomas]

'don't start owt mate'

[Norton Canes]

In our nearby coastal haven:




Not sure why the sculptor insisted on the birdwatching gear (do twitchers habitually sport plus-fours?) but the pose is spot-on. Fun for the punters.

[studpuppet]

Not forgetting this, in a back garden near Penrith.

[drummersaredeaf]

A man can't fly, which I heard some students describe, reasonably accurately, as 'naff'.

[idunnosomename]

In our nearby coastal haven:




Not sure why the sculptor insisted on the birdwatching gear (do twitchers habitually sport plus-fours?) but the pose is spot-on. Fun for the punters.

really one of the few livesize realistic statues which is really good. nothing uncanny valley about it at all. the exploitable photo op too, but it looks good on its own. i dont think anyone dislikes it

[greenman]

Sheep, waterwheel, rug chimera