CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
Well done to ALL posters
It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
"... but he gets it right about both Scott's Kelpies and the work of Vettriano"
How boring a world it would be if we were all supposed to like the same things and had no right to hold a personal preference. He gets it right for his preference, and your preference. Are you saying that if people like something different to you then they are wrong?
The Kelpies are a visitor attraction that attract visitors (and lots of them). If being popular and giving pleasure to people is a bad thing then I don't know quite how to respond to that.
Jack hoggan was a mining engineer, according to wiki which also cites him as a bingo caller
Girlfriend gave him paints for his 21st
Moved to Edinburgh in 1987, I perhaps drank in same pubs, art school rejected his portfolio. 1988 his wife left him (not sure his sexual textual politics tip top) changed name to mother's maiden name (his dad took his paper round money off him). 1989 submitted paintings to the RSA which sold first day and things snowballed
Kelpies quite good thanks to impressive scale. Other similar Andy Scott stuff pleasant enough to look at, but not jaw-droppingly amazing.
It could be worse. It could be a lot worse. It could be this:
Kelpies look good when you catch sight of them on round the forth at skinflats. You can walk inside them and wally salhab made a corking time lapse film of their construction. The artist is perhaps a little over exposed?
I like how both the Wheel and the Kelpies encourage people to go to the canals.
We could get back a lot more Monklands canal. Coatbridge Asda encroaches onto the original path a wee bit but hardly any of the rest is built on till the M8.
I like The Kelpies for their enormity, and I particularly like Andy Scott's Heavy Horse because it's a horse, but overall I think I prefer David Mach's Train.
"Are you saying that if people like something different to you then they are wrong?"
No I'm not. I do think that the Kelpies should never have been built however.
In many people's eyes that opinion makes me an elitist. Fine, I'm an elitist. Quite happy to be one, if it means I don't have to like the creations of Scott, Vettriano, etc.
It seems to me that the kind of pandering to popular prejudices about art exemplified by the Kelpies, or Vettriano's retrospective at Kelvingrove, has its equivalents in the political sphere. Pandering to popular sentiment and prejudice can lead to many unfortunate consequences...
I too like the train, and find it ironic that although it sits on the original s&Dr route, it is now hemmed in by the a66 Darlington bypass with nary a rail line in sight. (This section was rerouted through bank top station) I didn't know about the access fron Morrison's though.
pandering to popular prejudices about art exemplified by ...Vettriano's retrospective
I trust most people to stand in front of any artwork and honestly judge whether and how they respond to it. Some exhibitions leave people thinking nothing more than 'well that was dull'. I was disappointed to miss the Vettriano. I wanted to see what the fuss is about.
Also, if people respond to something I don't respond to that makes me curious about what I've missed.
One of the major advantages external-public-art-things have over stuff-in-galleries is that external-public-art-things don't have little white cards on a plinth or wall nearby. People can look at the things and think what they think of them in their own voice, without promptings by writings in symbological rhubarb language.
I like Lichentstein, my wife doesn't, I saw the Lichtensteins that were at the Modern Art Gallery, I was underwhelmed, I continue to enjoy them on a small scale. I'm right. And so is my wife. Art is funny. Art is entirely personl. No-one is right or wrong about what they like, because they like it. I prefer brunettes, others prefer blondes, neither is right or wrong. You can't 'choose' what to like (unless you're the kind of person who nods sagely at the little white placards proclaiming that the red splodge on a yellow background is reminiscent of the struggle for emancipation and brings to mind a parrot saying sausages).
As it happens I really like the Kelpies (less so his other stuff), love the scale, love the design, love the engineering, and personally I do think they're art. But that's my opinion, others are welcome to disagree with it, as long as they don't think I'm somehow 'wrong'.
The artist is perhaps a little over exposed?
Perhaps. I had no idea who he was until yesterday, though.
@frenchy have you heard of David Mach? He is supersonic.
I haven't. But surely he's only, but exactly, sonic unless he's travelling with relatives.
Ah frenchy but you should see him drinking gin and tonic
Very funny, you do make me laugh. Can I have an autograph?
Out by Asda
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