"
It would enable walkers and cyclists to safely cross a junction of the Forth & Clyde Canal in Maryhill. They currently have to use a narrow road under the canal which has no pavement.
"
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
New canal bridge (Glasgow)
(50 posts)-
Posted 8 years ago #
-
Bridge idea is great.
However, please Glasgow, no more horrendous Andy Scott constructions littering Scotland! There are enough of these monstrously kitsch scaled up paperweights as it is...
Posted 8 years ago # -
I'm not so keen on this design but I think the Kelpies are fantastic.
Posted 8 years ago # -
no more horrendous Andy Scott constructions littering Scotland
Time to start a database of CCErs' sculptural bêtes noires?
crowriver - Andy Scott
IWRATS - Edouardo PaolozziPosted 8 years ago # -
Loath as I am to inflict Scott's savagery upon your eyeballs, I must alert you to some of the aesthetic crimes he has perpetrated on an unsuspecting Scottish public. The Vettriano of public art...
Exhibit A, Cumbernauld:
Exhibit B, Clackmannanshire:
I shall spare you the notorious "pot of pee" memorial at Ravenscraig...
Posted 8 years ago # -
@crowriver
Notably er....callipygous...works.
Posted 8 years ago # -
I confess I quite like his one at Lomondgate, although the technique does indeed appear to be overused somewhat...
(apologies for not working out the resizing, but at least it's clickable for the full version!)
Robert
Posted 8 years ago # -
Don't particularly like the first two pictures above, but why the vitriol against him?
Posted 8 years ago # -
@Stickman
Public art can be very contentious. It pays well and is usually selected by commitees, so artists get very bitchy when other artists' works are selected, often implying them to be bland and commercial, or, worse, popular.
I like Cragg and Giacometti and Duchamps...they'd never get the gig for a roundabout sculpture even if they were all still alive.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Posted 8 years ago #
-
Is this to go where the City branch of the F&C meets the main F&C?
Posted 8 years ago # -
"Public art can be very contentious."
Indeed it can.
However I reserve my vitriol for Scott's creations because they represent not only a creeping sense of bland kitsch taking over (see Vettriano) but also the aesthetic is now approaching the level of Official Art in Scotland. Very few other sculptors are getting a look in. Scott's studio and it's gimmicky stainless steel output, while technically adept, has become too dominant: not only in scale (these things are huge) but also in volume.
How to describe a typical Andy Scott work? Technique aside, the figurative fantasy aesthetic is reminiscent of a blend between fascist art of the 1930s and 1940s, and sword and sorcery cover artwork from the 1970s.
Posted 8 years ago # -
@crowriver
I'd like to see an original Vettriano. I've only ever seen prints as the originals sell immediately to private collectors and there are none, as far as I know, in public colections. Hard to make a judgement without seeing the real thing.
He's been the subject of a great deal of snobbery and he's also a self-taught ex-miner. I do wonder if the two are connected. His work doesn't look bland to me, although it's not to my taste. It looks rather erotic in parts.
Posted 8 years ago # -
@IWRATS Two Vettrianos on display at Kirkcaldy Museum and Gallery. Also large colection of Peploes and one or two examples from the other Colourists. Well worth a diversion.
Posted 8 years ago # -
"He's been the subject of a great deal of snobbery and he's also a self-taught ex-miner. I do wonder if the two are connected"
Yes.
Additionally there are people who think people can't be artists unless they went to Art College.
Posted 8 years ago # -
@ih
Cheers. I've heard that's a good collection.
Posted 8 years ago # -
I don't have a problem with Vettriano's background, nor indeed his commercial success. His work sits comfortably within a tradition of popular culture which has many fans. The idea that he has anything interesting to add to contemporary painting is in my view wide of the mark.
Scott's output is far more troubling in that large amounts of public money are being spent on it. The sheer scale of the constructions is too bombastic given the often trite subject matter. If these are monuments, what do they commemorate other than Scott's own inflated ego? They've become a kind of lazy gesture at trying to recreate an "iconic" "signature" piece of public art, as happened with Scott's earlier gargantuan equestrian totems, or with Gormley's 'Angel of the North' in Gateshead.
What exactly are these large lumps of stainless steel latticework doing dotted around the landscape of central Scotland? What do they say about contemporary Scottish culture? Is this really the best we can do?
Posted 8 years ago # -
You have identified a crisis in public art! Used to be bronzes of famous white men, now it's municipal guff?
I like the Kelpies a great deal, but for what it's worth I don't think they're actually artworks. More theatrical engineering.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Stop public funding of all art. Problem solved.
/ducks below the parapet/
Posted 8 years ago # -
Stop public funding of all art. Problem solved.
The other way to solve this problem would be to publicly fund all art. All art.Posted 8 years ago # -
@Frenchy
Could be expensive, especially when I put in my application for funding on my conceptual piece which entails living in luxury for the rest of my life in order to make a statement about the wealth gap.
Posted 8 years ago # -
@Stickman
Stop public funding of everything except art. Different problem solved.
Posted 8 years ago # -
"I've heard that's a good collection"
Ok cafe.
Check the war memorial outside too -
Different generation of public art.
Posted 8 years ago # -
"I like the Kelpies a great deal, but for what it's worth I don't think they're actually artworks. More theatrical engineering."
I find the scale too much, almost overwhelming. Technically they are well made, as you say the engineering is to be appreciated. What I find more disturbing is the seemingly 'iconic' status they have been bestowed with. They have also, since the last election, become a populist political symbol of Scotland itself...
Posted 8 years ago # -
@chdot " Check the war memorial outside too -"
I believe the whole building is the war memorial - possibly the only one of its kind in the UK.
Posted 8 years ago # -
And the gardens too apparently -
http://www.scottish-places.info/features/featurefirst90464.html
Posted 8 years ago # -
"populist political symbol of Scotland itself"
Previously it was the nearby Falkirk Wheel..
Soon it will be that new bridge. (Not the one this thread has drifted from!)
Though if DT wins, perhaps it will be an offshore wind farm.
Posted 8 years ago # -
"Previously it was the nearby Falkirk Wheel.."
In 2015 it was the Forth Bridge (the original Victorian one).
"Soon it will be that new bridge. "
No doubt. Though I personally find the new road bridge less elegant a piece of engineering than the Forth Road Bridge, and not a patch on the uniqueness of the Forth Bridge itself. If the QC becomes a symbol of Scotland what does it tell us?
Motorways, motorways, MOTORWAYS.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Bridge good as that bit of the canal is a pain to come off, cross road and go back up, given how excellent the path is out to Kirkintilloch.
I prefer David Mach (curiously Facebook sent me two pictures of him at the weekend, one with a person In a gorilla costume) the third heid heading west on the M8 is still called Terry
Posted 8 years ago # -
I know a few folk here like the Kelpies. I know quite a few folk socially that like them too. Well, I don't.
It's not often I agree with Jonathan Jones but he gets it right about both Scott's Kelpies and the work of Vettriano:
Posted 8 years ago #
Reply »
You must log in to post.
posts
