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Ireland's crappiest public art.

whisky_galore

I've noticed that just about every town and city has got these obligatory plaques or bronze sculptures of notables or something thrown together with a few rocks, usually at great expense. Limerick city being the latest getting a laughable 'likeness' of Terry Wogan.

Your nominations for crap public art, memorials and sculptures please!

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NinetyTwoTeam

Bambi wrote: »

If I could piss 6 foot up a wall it would be an amazing feat too..but so what?

It's an expensive embarrassment

Sigh. The spire is 400 ft tall. So that's quite a bigger deal to me. and anyway, you CAN'T piss 6 foot up a wall. You can't compare an accomplishment that was completed to one you say would be amazing but you haven't done. By your logic, landing on the moon means nothing.

Man has for many years been fascinated by ascending into the heavens or space. To me, that's what the spire represents. And unlike a tall parking block, or skyscraper like Arghus compared it to, it wasn't created for the purpose of stacking humans or their expensive vehicles into a box to support capitalism/consumerism, etc. In my eyes, it was created to cause people to look up from their busy lives down below in the city rate race up towards the heavens, and remind us how expansive our world is not just across ground level but upwards as well, where it goes on and on, farther than we can comprehend, possibly forever. And many people can see it from many locations and distances sharing that experience and that connects us.

But if you don't get it, that's okay. Philistinism is not illegal.

The_Valeyard

snowflaker wrote: »

A Pylon holding the book of Durrow... (not a fan!)

ALL HAIL OUR DARK LORD SAURON

Dyr

NinetyTwoTeam wrote: »

Sigh. The spire is 400 ft tall. So that's quite a bigger deal to me. and anyway, you CAN'T piss 6 foot up a wall. You can't compare an accomplishment that was completed to one you say would be amazing but you haven't done. By your logic, landing on the moon means nothing.

Man has for many years been fascinated by ascending into the heavens or space. To me, that's what the spire represents. And unlike a tall parking block, or skyscraper like Arghus compared it to, it wasn't created for the purpose of stacking humans or their expensive vehicles into a box to support capitalism/consumerism, etc. In my eyes, it was created to cause people to look up from their busy lives down below in the city rate race up towards the heavens, and remind us how expansive our world is not just across ground level but upwards as well, where it goes on and on, farther than we can comprehend, possibly forever. And many people can see it from many locations and distances sharing that experience and that connects us.

But if you don't get it, that's okay. Philistinism is not illegal.

Sigh all you like matey, Joe Tax payer is paying 200 grand a year for a spike. You could have a had a 200 foot ferris wheel for that price if you wanted people to see the heavens

Designed to be meaningless, high maintenance and contemptuous of its own surroundings and history. A massive ****ing phone mast as tribute to the celtic tiger era

Yourself isit

Bambi wrote: »

Yeah just move on happy in the knowledge that you paid top dollar for a piece of crap that 99% of your community would rather not see

A few dull bores and curmudgeons aside the spire is generally liked.

RayM

PandaPoo wrote: »

What's with the ram in bray? Just seems such a weird animal to choose.

http://www.buildingsofireland.ie/niah/search.jsp?type=record&county=WI&regno=16400722

I pass that every day and it never occurred to me that it was a ram. Not sure what I thought it was, tbh.

pangbang

NinetyTwoTeam wrote: »

Sigh. The spire is 400 ft tall. So that's quite a bigger deal to me. and anyway, you CAN'T piss 6 foot up a wall. You can't compare an accomplishment that was completed to one you say would be amazing but you haven't done. By your logic, landing on the moon means nothing.

Man has for many years been fascinated by ascending into the heavens or space. To me, that's what the spire represents. And unlike a tall parking block, or skyscraper like Arghus compared it to, it wasn't created for the purpose of stacking humans or their expensive vehicles into a box to support capitalism/consumerism, etc. In my eyes, it was created to cause people to look up from their busy lives down below in the city rate race up towards the heavens, and remind us how expansive our world is not just across ground level but upwards as well, where it goes on and on, farther than we can comprehend, possibly forever. And many people can see it from many locations and distances sharing that experience and that connects us.

But if you don't get it, that's okay. Philistinism is not illegal.

If youre gonna do something then do it properly.

When I first heard of the spire I thought you would be able to go up in the thing like half way, and thought it would be MUCH bigger.

As you say, aspire to the heavens, but something a bit bigger that actually stands out like the Eiffel tower. You don't need to be able to go up the thing, but at least have it visibly shout out from a big distance, not "you see between those rooftops there? To the left of that aerial? Yeah, that's the spire"

Go big or go home. As it is we're stuck with a mild embarrassment of a national monument.

LionelNashe

Dr Crayfish wrote: »

Like you don't have to do much to get a statue here really do you? Be on the radio in England? Is Graham Norton going to get a statue? I wonder if they'll give that aul one from Limerick who won the euro millions a statue? I wouldn't be surprised.

Not a statue, but his portrait is pretty good.

Arghus

NinetyTwoTeam wrote: »

I'll be basically repeating myself as you have repeated yourself. this is where some people get all flustered with abstract art as they can't comprehend something where the meaning is not spelled out for them so they rail against it. They interpret a simple work as lacking imagination when more likely it's the viewer who lacks it and then gets mad that they aren't given an easy explanation. In that case the viewer is best to just stop worrying about if it means anything and decide if they find it interesting to look at. If not, just move on. I was looking at an artist today who does 2 types of abstract sculptures, one kind (the coloured bags) I really like, the other type (the wire sculptures) do nothing for me.
http://www.motherstankstation.com/artist/maggie-madden/

Probably someone feels the same but the other way around. That's fine, you don't have to like or get everything.

The fact that the spire is not depicting a person or event or symbolic of a tangible thing leaves it's meaning open to interpretation and it can mean something different to everyone - which makes it more appropriate for a city with many cultures than say, a statue of a religious icon. It's more inclusive. Also, despite it's size, you can quite easily forget it's there sometimes, it's not intrusive or overbearing.

Now, I like to consider myself a relatively cultured man. I understand a bit about abstract art. I wouldn't be so presumptuous as to consider myself an expert on it, but I have spent some time over the years looking at it in museums, galleries or exhibitions - I've even been known to like the odd piece here and there! And, of course, not only just in the visual arts, Dahhhling.

I think your assessment of why The Spire works - lack of a definitive meaning, potentially having a multiplicity of interpretations, being broadly reflective of an increasingly pluralistic society etc,etc - is clever and makes some appealing sense. I also think it's a bit pat. It's too easy.

I fully accept that as work of abstract art, by definition, it won't have a rigid determined meaning. And I amn't instinctively intellectually or emotionally opposed to that. But I also think that's why it's - highly subjective opinion ahoy! - fundamentally a poor piece of art. It's the most prominent piece of public art commissioned in Ireland in the last couple of decades: everyone knows of it. But I don't think it means anything to the people of the city at large. You might scoff at that, thinking that's an old fashioned idea- unimaginative, even - that such a piece of art should have something so gauche attached to it, but I still think that in this case abstraction can be read as essentially meaningless and void. I think The Spire should mean something - sorry - but it doesn't succeed; because of it's inescapable blandness.

The only thing for me that on one it might indeed symbolize is the time in which in which it came into being: when modernity and money seemed to be what we were all about, but it was a bland, empty and unimaginative age. Paddy Casey and Mundy used to top the charts after all. And those days have a perfect relic in The Spire

NinetyTwoTeam

pangbang wrote: »

If youre gonna do something then do it properly.

When I first heard of the spire I thought you would be able to go up in the thing like half way, and thought it would be MUCH bigger.

As you say, aspire to the heavens, but something a bit bigger that actually stands out like the Eiffel tower. You don't need to be able to go up the thing, but at least have it visibly shout out from a big distance, not "you see between those rooftops there? To the left of that aerial? Yeah, that's the spire"

Go big or go home. As it is we're stuck with a mild embarrassment of a national monument.

It would be much cooler if you could go up in it, but just because it's not as big as the Eiffel doesn't make it an embarrassment. It was finalist for several international architecture awards.

AllForIt

This piece of waste of space.

Situated in the grounds of the UCD campus.

I thought Mork and Mindy had arrived

mork-and-mindy-season-1-opening-egg-hatches-review-episode-guide-list-300x218.jpg

NinetyTwoTeam

Arghus wrote: »

The only thing for me that on one it might indeed symbolize is the time in which in which it came into being: when modernity and money seemed to be what we were all about, but it was a bland, empty and unimaginative age. Paddy Casey and Mundy used to top the charts after all. And those days have a perfect relic in The Spire

So you actually have a very personal connection to it but it happens to be negative. For someone else they might have a positive one. But I can understand your view on it if you feel it represented that time of excess, particularly if you suffered during the recession that followed and think 'gee we could have done with not wasting money on that now we're broke.'

Where you lost me is when you said it doesn't mean something, when it clearly does have a meaning to you, just that you don't like what you feel from it. Which is fine, I don't think you're uncultured because you don't like it, as you have since articulated why you don't quite effectively and I can understand why you have that view - seeing it reminds you of a negative time, sort of like hearing a song on the radio every day that was the same one playing in a restaurant when your girlfriend broke up with you or something. I'm not a rabid fan of it, it's pretty cool to me but I find large structures are far more beautiful when they are natural and not man made.

FanadMan

I like this one - granted it's near enough to me but still

Some more shots of it http://donegalpublicart.ie/dpa_polestar.html

Arghus

NinetyTwoTeam wrote: »

So you actually have a very personal connection to it but it happens to be negative. For someone else they might have a positive one. But I can understand your view on it if you feel it represented that time of excess, particularly if you suffered during the recession that followed and think 'gee we could have done with not wasting money on that now we're broke.'

Where you lost me is when you said it doesn't mean something, when it clearly does have a meaning to you, just that you don't like what you feel from it. Which is fine, I don't think you're uncultured because you don't like it, as you have since articulated why you don't quite effectively and I can understand why you have that view - seeing it reminds you of a negative time, sort of like hearing a song on the radio every day that was the same one playing in a restaurant when your girlfriend broke up with you or something. I'm not a rabid fan of it, it's pretty cool to me but I find large structures are far more beautiful when they are natural and not man made.

Please understand that I was struggling to find that "meaning" and if I wasn't debating it, I wouldn't be stretching for it - maybe connotation would be more accurate than meaning. I largely feel nothing for the spire, but now I've worked myself up to a state of acute indifference.

AllForIt

I think 'The Spire" is a piece of crap. Sorry if I've taken the level of intellectual debate down but I don't care.

I recall decades ago that there was a large thing in the center of O'Connell street. I don't know what it was but it looked better than this thing that looks like it's going to rust over the years.

I see it as a pretentious attempt to have a tall structure in a city that doesn't have any tall skyscrapers as seen in other more important cities.

The whole look of O'Connel street has been ruined by The Spire. It's not good looking, it's not amazing looking, it's not anything, it just look like a badly though out piece of crap.

I am really looking forward to the day that this monstrosity is taken down, as it surly will be in time. It's utterly meaningless in every respect to the country and to the locals and I would hope the locals would petition that it would be demolished in favor of something more appropriate.

893bet

LionelNashe wrote: »

Not a statue, but his portrait is pretty good.

He is a little greyer since he started managing man united though.

893bet

callaway92 wrote: »

The Anthony Foley thing in Limerick

Saw it in person there a week ago. Very creepy

Start the reactor........free Mars .....

(Total recall joke)

Wibbs

When I think of the Spire, TBH what comes to mind is this

maped-quality-paper-note-spike-holder-file-receipts-bills-invoices-etc-7022-p.jpg

A perfect placeholder for the huge invisible bills we're all paying as a result of the excesses of the time of its birth.

Aesthetically I should like it, but I find it hard to for some reason. I think partially because it just is, it's not publicly interactive in the way Nelson's column was, beyond being an aiming point for drunken urination. Then again maybe that's a sign of the times, a modern Nelson's pillar has to be more sterile and not interactive?

[Deleted User]

Ipso wrote: »

There is a very nice statue in the Curlew Mountains outside Sligo

marvin80 wrote: »

This one? http://www.conloncottages.com/images/horseman_viewing_point.jpg

Looks great I think.

I also love that one of Aodh Rua Ó Dónaill and it's historically very appropriate as he led the Irish forces that defeated the English there in 1599 .

[Deleted User]

LionelNashe wrote: »

Not a statue, but his portrait is pretty good.

He looks, and certainly sounds, much better there than in real life.

Yourself isit

AllForIt wrote: »

I think 'The Spire" is a piece of crap. Sorry if I've taken the level of intellectual debate down but I don't care.

I recall decades ago that there was a large thing in the center of O'Connell street. I don't know what it was but it looked better than this thing that looks like it's going to rust over the years.

I see it as a pretentious attempt to have a tall structure in a city that doesn't have any tall skyscrapers as seen in other more important cities.

The whole look of O'Connel street has been ruined by The Spire. It's not good looking, it's not amazing looking, it's not anything, it just look like a badly though out piece of crap.

I am really looking forward to the day that this monstrosity is taken down, as it surly will be in time. It's utterly meaningless in every respect to the country and to the locals and I would hope the locals would petition that it would be demolished in favor of something more appropriate.

I like that it annoys the right people. If was going to rust it would be now.

[Deleted User]

Anybody mention the massive hares they
erected across Dublin during the Celtic Bubble?

I quite liked them, but loads of people didn't. Most of them seem to have been removed but one still exists outside AIB headquarters on Serpentine Avenue in Ballsbridge.

inforfun

Amateurs.

This how it is done: Santa Claus in Rotterdam
Or Kabouter Buttplug as the locals call him.

At least it is an statue instead of some rubbish thrown on the side of a motorway

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Dyr

FanadMan wrote: »

I like this one - granted it's near enough to me but still

Some more shots of it http://donegalpublicart.ie/dpa_polestar.html

That's pretty cool, so is the UCD easter egg

Dyr

....... wrote: »

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There's still one outside a building off Pembroke road, they were probably the best things put in Ireland in my memory, especially the thinking hare.

They replaced them with those dull displays of walking set in concrete, still one of those outside the Hugh Lane.

irishejit

Was travelling to Killarney over easter , driving from Dublin direction and spotted this crazy ass thing....thought it was a Bull on one side and a gorilla on the other, but its a man?? I was going quite a lick and on my own in the car iun my defense....though it near put me off the road, craning my neck going 'What the hell did I just see?'

marvin80

PARlance wrote: »

The one in Longford is pretty impressive. It's a massive violin just stuck in a hill.

It represents the sense of sorrow you have driving through the place.

I think it looks good, representing Longford's traditional music heritage.

http://www.visuallongford.ie/wp-content/uploads/the_violin.jpg

robindch

Did they use this guy to model those new monochrome spacemen in Prometheus + Alien Covenant?

marvin80

Deleted User wrote: »

I also love that one of Aodh Rua Ó Dónaill and it's historically very appropriate as he led the Irish forces that defeated the English there in 1599 .

That's a very interesting read - thanks