Angel looks down on Big Dick
Saturday, April 21, 2012
If you were in the “cloakroom” at Fortnum & Mason’s, the
swanky shop for wealthy Londoners, you’d be in the mens’ toilet.
In January 2009 a “cloakroom” in Davos, Switzerland was the
meeting place of old Etonian and posh bloke Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, and
Lakshmi Mittal, steel magnet and one of the richest men in the world.
Their brief encounter in a toilet – sorry “cloakroom” - led
to the creation of a Britain's largest piece of public art. It’s the 115 metres (377 ft) high steel
tower named “The Arcelor Mittal Orbit Tower” plonked at the Olympic Park in
Stratford, East London.
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Photo, from the Arcelor Mittal Orbit Tower official website
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You could say that this enormous red phallic shaped Public
Art tower is the product of a pissing competition between two powerful, wealthy
alpha males. Its shape would put you in mind of that. Towering over London’s skyline, the only thing public about
The Arcelor Mittal Orbit’s Public Art work is that we all have to look at it.
Public art, sited in a public place should have input from
and show respect to the people who live there and the space it inhabits. There
is little evidence of that here, as it looks like the only public engagement
with The Arcelor Mittal Orbit Tower will be when the public pay to be taken for a
ride in it.
There’s a lot of money in steel and 2,000 tonnes was ripped
out of the earth to make The Arcelor Mittal Orbit Tower. Mind you, you could argue
that it’s better use of steel than say, the armaments industry. The people of
the East End of London have seen plenty of steel fall on them in two World Wars
and many soldiers of its regiments have felt it in their gut often enough.
The tower has come in for criticism already. Listed Londoner and art critic Brian
Sewell comments "Our country is littered with public art of absolutely no
merit. We are entering a new period of fascist gigantism.”
Well, it’s easy enough to criticise and it’s a shame that
Johnson and Mittel missed an opportunity in not commissioning us to design a
monumental public artwork for the 2012 Olympics. However, we offer them an opportunity to work with us now by
providing two bold solutions to a successful re-imagining of the Arcelor Mittal
Orbit Tower. When implemented, our
solutions might just well make the public look more favourably on the
characters in question. We might learn to love it, rather than loathe
the idea of being pissed on from a great height.
For this we ask Lakshmi Mittal, the 6th weathiest
man in India, the UK and Asia to pay us the same artist’s fee as was paid to
the designer of the Arcelor Mittal Orbit Tower, Anish Kapoor, and engineer Cecil
Balmond.
How Wyllie O Hagan would re-imagine the Arcelor Mittal Orbit Tower
Firstly - 65% of the steel used in making of the Arcelor Mittal Orbit Tower is recycled. Let’s go the whole hog and recycle all 100% of it after the Olympics. Thieves are targeting plaques from the UK's estimated 100,000 war memorials taking advantage of soaring metal prices. By my reckoning, you’d get enough money from the scrap metal from the tower to fund the protection of all of the UK”s metal war memorials. Just imagine the rich vein of stories to be mined from the public when they talk about the Arcelor Mittal Orbit Tower at the 2012 London Olympics and when it’s decommissioned afterwards.
Firstly - 65% of the steel used in making of the Arcelor Mittal Orbit Tower is recycled. Let’s go the whole hog and recycle all 100% of it after the Olympics. Thieves are targeting plaques from the UK's estimated 100,000 war memorials taking advantage of soaring metal prices. By my reckoning, you’d get enough money from the scrap metal from the tower to fund the protection of all of the UK”s metal war memorials. Just imagine the rich vein of stories to be mined from the public when they talk about the Arcelor Mittal Orbit Tower at the 2012 London Olympics and when it’s decommissioned afterwards.
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War Memorial in park in Poplar, East End of London listing the names of 9 of the 18 young children killed when a bomb fell on their school in World War 1.
Photo: Wyllie O Hagan
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Secondly - Use the tower as a pointer to the birthplace of
the Angel of the Lee Valley, on Leyton Marsh, just a mile or so north of the
2012 Olympic site. In the millennium, artist Denise Wyllie, with full
participation of diverse members of community groups, designed and managed the
Angel of the Lee Valley, a monumental public artwork the size of a football pitch.
Respecting the physical site of the Lee Valley itself, the transient land
artwork did not disturb or take anything away from it, leaving no scar on the
landscape. What did remain was a lovely lasting memory of a public artwork with
the people who made and experienced it. A further legacy of the Angel of the
Lee Valley is the model of professional art practice it provides in
demonstrating how to achieve a successful, inclusive, Public Art project.
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Photos:
Top - of Angel
of the Lee Valley on Leyton Marsh, London, by photographer at GLR Radio, taken
from plane
Bottom: Angel of the Lee Valley with artist Denise Wyllie - Agynor Charalambides |
Clare O Hagan and Denise Wyllie
Wyllie O Hagan Artist Partnership, London, 2012 Olympic Year
For information on the work of the War memorial trust
For further information on the Angel of the Lee Valley
For further information on the Arcelor Mittal Orbit:
Labels: Angel of the Lee Valley, Anish Kapoor, Arcelor Mittal Orbit Tower, Boris Johnson, Cecil Balmond, denise wyllie, Lakshmi Mittal, london 2012 olympics artists, Public art, Wyllie OHagan
posted by wyllieohagan @ 5:51 AM
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