wyllie O hagan

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.

Photo, from the Arcelor Mittal Orbit Tower official website

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 6^th 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.

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

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.

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

http://www.wyllieohagan.com

https://www.facebook.com/wyllieohagan

For information on the work of the War memorial trust

http://www.warmemorials.org

For further information on the Angel of the Lee Valley

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_6BIBgE-X0

https://www.facebook.com/AngelOfTheLeeValley

For further information on the Arcelor Mittal Orbit:

http://www.arcelormittalorbit.com/