Statues of Possibility - Esther

Statues aren’t about history. They are about adoration. This man was not great. He was a slave trader & murderer. 
(David Olusoga)

This has been the week of the statue. In a time of civil disobedience, soul-searching, righteous (& not so righteous) anger & revisiting history, statues have come in for scrutiny, criticism & direct action. We find ourselves asking what statues in public spaces are erected for. Who do they serve? Who do they help? Once again the power of the visual gives us pause for thought.

Concerns have been raised that we are “erasing history,” that in removing municipal statues we are somehow destined to magically forget the past. Whether or not you agree with civil disobedience & regardless of what should be ultimately done with them afterwards, removal of statues of well-known figures negates nothing except the celebration of undeserving subjects. Responding to the toppling of Bristol’s Edward Colston statue & the subsequent tipping into the harbour where slaves were once delivered, professor & historian David Olusoga has said,

“This was not an attack on history. This is history. It is one of those rare historic moments whose arrival means things can never go back to how they were.”

& to those handwringers exclaiming, “where will it all end?” & “it’s a slippery slope!” I say well, I’m sure people said those things about women’s suffrage. Weren’t they afraid that animals would later get the vote as a result?

In any case, if one were to consider public statues to be “inspirational” or “aspirational” to the viewer (surprisingly few appear to be making the case for this), who is going to be inspired by kidnappers & traffickers of humans, much less murderers? Personally, I struggle to see the point of making statues of real public figures. Effigies as memorials to groups, or to represent the remembering of an event & the people involved can be positive places to gather & remember. I can’t recall ever learning history from a statue, because books, films & photographs exist.

Part of me wants to celebrate appallingly bad – as in poorly executed, too weird, looks nothing like them – statues but that would be mean spirited. Sports are hugely guilty of this. Artistically, it’s a minefield. To fans, it’s frequently controversial.

But I want to make the real message of today about the beauty, curiosity or delight of a well-placed, well-made statue in the outdoors. Here are the definitions of statue versus sculpture I want to use, although I’m not making a case for one over another. Sometimes in life the distinction is blurred.

Statue - intended as a figurative representation of an animal or person (or both).

Sculpture – intended as a three dimensional work of art, often abstract.

Whether they are tourist attractions in themselves or conversation pieces, community statues (as opposed to sculptures) can be wonderful things. They don’t need to be ineffective nor sweet & the following choices are of course up for debate but hopefully none are symbols of oppression, suffering & despair.

An animal is a good option for instance. Clearly they’re often taken to represent an ideal or quality but they work best when they appear random & for amusement, for instance Barcelona’s instantly recognisable El Gato de Botero who has endured several moves up until now.

Dick Whittington’s cat in London is another favourite. About to jump, move or run, it’s an evocative depiction of cat alertness. There’s something of the feral in her, despite the smooth form & pleasant features. Renowned for her mousing, it’s as if she’s spotted something to catch.

My home town of Aberdeen houses many feline statues of a larger sort, in particular leopards. Leopards appear on the city’s crest thanks (legend has it) to a gift of leopards to the city by James I for helping him out with some debts while imprisoned. Some of my favourite statues are the distinctly unleopardy “Kelly’s Cats” leopards, lining Union Bridge on the main street.

More recently, Andy Scott’s fabulous leopard Poised was commissioned, destined to live high on his pedestal in Aberdeen’s Marischal Square. No photo ever does him justice. He’s higher than it looks, he’s more impressive than it looks, but the way he’s lit at night gives some impression of his magnificence.

Further from home, I recall being very taken with the animal statues outside the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. Alfred Jacquemart’s 1877 rhinoceros in particular - another piece that’s been moved around - appeared so incongruous to me at the time. Not so. Perhaps due to there having been “woolly” rhinos roaming what is now France during the Ice Age, as well as appearing in cave paintings there was an apparent interest in “exotic” animals in French society during the 19^th century.

Where a human is being used in statues for public spaces, including an associated animal renders it something different & often grants it a wider appeal. Combining two of my favourite things (beer & cats), Ware’s Maltmaker statue portrays the cat & man as partners, equal workers & reliant on each other to do their respective jobs. Ware in Hertfordshire was previously home to 140 malt houses & was the foremost supplier of malt for the making porter.

It seems the more effective civic statues of humans are memorable, thought-provoking, peculiar or unusual & as close to art as possible. Either that or they’re placed in unexpected, hard to find spots.

The Bela Bartok statue in Brussels for instance combines a looming, shifty presence with a fascinating spiky metal “plinth.” Tucked away but at street height, he appears stereotypically European in his coolness, huddled with his collar up against the rain & wind.

Amsterdam’s Invisible Man (since painted blue) in Marnixplantsoen invites speculation & enquiry. The symbolism is left in the eye of the beholder. It is not even known who created him but the artist is also believed to be behind the Woodcutter statue.

A final example brings us back to the start. Jason de Caires Taylor’s 2007 Vicissitudes is as hard to find as it’s possible to get. It lies beneath the ocean. Mistakenly considered to honour the lives of African slaves lost at sea, it shows children of a mixture of ethnicities holding hands in a circle. It was the artist’s original intention in his words to depict “growth, chance & natural transformation. It shows how time & environment impact on  & shape the physical body.”

The reinterpretation & adoption of the piece as an anti-racist symbol however transforms Vicissitudes & causes it to transcend its intended meaning. This is the power of the visual. Anything is possible.