Ireland's crappiest public art.

whisky_galore · 28-06-2017 04:42PM

Wibbs wrote: »

I genuinely can't see how this could be viewed as anything less than appalling. I truly can't.

That someone describes as an artist got paid for this beggars belief.

Now don't shoot me down in flames folks, but I would say Irish culture is not particularly visually attuned. Oral and aurally tuned, hell yes, right up at the top, but visually, not nearly so much. And hasn't been since the medieval. The general view of art and design isn't sophisticated and I don't mean that in a pretentious pseud way("simple" art and design is often the hardest to pull off). I mean that our eye isn't particularly well tuned.

It's a caricature.
Weathering will take the chocolate Easter Bunny look off of it, then it'll be a caricature with a green tinge, that is if the metal thieves don't rob it first.

I agree we are a bit sh1te at designing and building things in general. In Italy, new buildings seemed to fit in with older ones and look 'right' instead of sticking out like a sore thumb which is usual here. Things seem to cost enormous sums of money here to commission, install or build yet many of them still look cheap.

Dyr · 28-06-2017 04:42PM

Shenshen wrote: »

Leading from one street to... exactly the same street. Tons of meaning, definitely

I prefer the idea of a pillar, or a column. Something drawing back to Egyptian obelisks, and Roman triumphal columns, or even to Celtic standing stones, but of course with much more modern aspects, to the idea of empty gateways.

But then that's what art is, two people looking at the same thing and seeing something completely different.

Gateways in most cultures have meaning..bigly meaning

Limbic spaces and all that oul guff

Shenshen · 28-06-2017 04:44PM

Tim76 wrote: »

The Irish had no problem sculpting proper statues until recently. There are plenty of them from the 18th/19th centuries littered around the major cities to attest to that.

The "sculptor" in this case needs to go back and study his 1st year art college notes. He seems to have absolutely no concept of the proportions of the human body.

I would love to hear his reasoning behind this abomination.

I'm not so sure - how do you know how well they captured likeness back then, there weren't exactly a lot of realistic images to compare the statues to. and if you look at most painted portraits throughout history (excluding possibly Holbein and Leonardo da Vinci), I don't honestly think that people back then really looked that odd.
Portraits are a very, very difficult thing to get right. That's why I don't honestly understand the obsession with them, or with "lifelike" statues. If you want to put up a monument to a great person, display something highlighting their achievement. Don't faff about with trying to make sure their forehead are in proportion to their lower lips.
Waste of time and no artistic merit whatsoever.

Shenshen · 28-06-2017 04:46PM

Bambi wrote: »

Gateways in most cultures have meaning..bigly meaning

Limbic spaces and all that oul guff

And columns don't?
You think great wide openings have more meaning than tall, hard things? Very feminist of you

Dyr · 28-06-2017 04:46PM

Shenshen wrote: »

I'm not sure you're not confusing history with art here - 300 years down the line, the spire might well be steeped in that much meaning as well, or possibly more.

And will have only cost 60 million to maintain by that stage

Shenshen · 28-06-2017 04:50PM

Bambi wrote: »

And will have only cost 60 million to maintain by that stage

Compared to the roughly $227mio the Eiffel Tower will cost in maintenance in the same time - bloody bargain!!!

And that's just the paint alone

pauliebdub · 28-06-2017 04:52PM

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I hate that yoke in Naas, very jarring

http://www.thejournal.ie/celtic-tiger-road-art-1885896-Jan2015/

I actually like this. It would be one of my favourite pieces.

The Anthony Foley one looks dreadful, it's like a travellers headstone with an image that doesn't look like him, surprised his family agreed to it. It looks very tacky.

....... · 28-06-2017 05:10PM

This post has been deleted.

humberklog · 28-06-2017 05:18PM

The Wogan one looks like the artist googled the Spitting Image version of El Tel.

I wish there was a halt to "realist" sculptures of people- they rarely look good even when well done.

I particularly don't like the asthetics of The Stardust memorial (kids dancing in a ring).
On phone so no images to share.

J Mysterio · 28-06-2017 05:19PM

keano_afc wrote: »

The Spire in the mire

The needle amongst the needles.

Fishyfreak · 28-06-2017 05:19PM

The Anna-Livia (a.k.a The floozy in the jacuzzi) looks awful now because they removed the structure that held it up. She now looks like someone who fell off a roof and got impaled on scaffolding.

Tim76 · 28-06-2017 05:30PM

Shenshen wrote: »

I'm not so sure - how do you know how well they captured likeness back then, there weren't exactly a lot of realistic images to compare the statues to. and if you look at most painted portraits throughout history (excluding possibly Holbein and Leonardo da Vinci), I don't honestly think that people back then really looked that odd.
Portraits are a very, very difficult thing to get right. That's why I don't honestly understand the obsession with them, or with "lifelike" statues. If you want to put up a monument to a great person, display something highlighting their achievement. Don't faff about with trying to make sure their forehead are in proportion to their lower lips.
Waste of time and no artistic merit whatsoever.

I'm not talking about likeness, i'm talking about proportion. And the most basic of proportion at that, the ratio between the head and the body. Get that wrong and no amount of "likeness" is going to make the piece look right.

Next time you are walking around town have a look at some of the older statues and you will quickly see that the sculptors understood this fundamental concept.

Syphonax · 28-06-2017 05:33PM

Murals in Northern Ireland particularly the Unionist variety.

darkdubh · 28-06-2017 06:10PM

The statue to the unknown lunatic on Paul St Cork. Who decided this ugly piece of crap was a good idea?

J Mysterio · 28-06-2017 06:15PM

humberklog wrote: »

On phone so no images to share.

What does this mean? Your phone is a computer. It's more than capable of inserting a link to an image in tags.

Jellybaby1 · 28-06-2017 07:33PM

I am an ancient Dub and I do not like The Spire. Considering that in 1916 O'Connell Street was aflame I feel they should have popped up a statue of an oul' Phoenix. Job done!

Now, I'm am somewhat embarrassed, but I submit for your pleasure and delectation the fabulous sculpture of my own personal family.

http://www.minube.net/place/jelly-baby-family-a2158491

Edit: I am on the left dressed in pink!

J Mysterio · 28-06-2017 07:49PM

Awesome. I adore the small ones, particularly the goldy one. Would buy.

Jellybaby1 · 28-06-2017 07:54PM

J Mysterio wrote: »

Awesome. I adore the small ones, particularly the goldy one. Would buy.

Thank you. That would be Goldie, he's my golden boy!

The J Stands for Jay · 28-06-2017 08:11PM

....... wrote: »

I like the Naas ball too. Its actually a time capsule which I like even more.

I heard (probably elsewhere on boards) that the ball had a leak and the time capsule was destroyed. I find that pretty disappointing.

blue5000 · 28-06-2017 08:28PM

osarusan wrote: »

No it doesn't.

It's actually quite good apart from the weird elongation of his head - if his head was squashed down so that it was more round, it would be very good.

Perhaps it looks so bad because we were all used to looking at Terry on wide screen TVs?

redarmyblues · 28-06-2017 08:39PM

The photo does a little bit too much justice to this one in the Garavogue River in Sligo. The Swans were supposed to nest on the concrete block, they had to tie a swan to the block for this photo, as you can see the poor bird is trying to free itself.

If the artist had taken his time to actually observe nesting swan on the Garavogue, he world have seen that the swans tie their nests into reed beds so they don't get swept away by a rising flood and they are buoyant so they can rise and fall as the river comes in and out of spate.

Wibbs · 28-06-2017 08:58PM

Shenshen wrote: »

I prefer the idea of a pillar, or a column. Something drawing back to Egyptian obelisks, and Roman triumphal columns, or even to Celtic standing stones,

All of which were meaningful from the get go. They were meaning made art as it were. That was their entire function. They didn't need history to justify their existence.

But then that's what art is, two people looking at the same thing and seeing something completely different.

Yes and no. That has become a more modernist take on art. Where interpretation takes precedence over clear meaning and craft. So one can find galleries of such art where the explanation is required(and longwinded), because the art itself is so opaque. Plus beyond all that there are some general "rules" for aesthetics, for form and even beauty, especially in the human form. Only really top flight artists in history have been able to bend them. El Greco would be an earlier example of that. The top cubists and other modernists would be more recent.

Shenshen wrote: »

I'm not sure you're not confusing history with art here - 300 years down the line, the spire might well be steeped in that much meaning as well, or possibly more.

Maybe if it fell over.

Shenshen wrote: »

I'm not so sure - how do you know how well they captured likeness back then, there weren't exactly a lot of realistic images to compare the statues to.

There were a lot of stylistic influences alright which varied with fashion(inc DaVinci), especially in the often stilted court portraiture. However as Tim76 points out proportion was sacrosanct. Funny enough Roman portraiture was unusual in this. They aimed for as accurate and recognisable a likeness as possible. Warts and all.

Julius Caesar probably looked very like this, thinning hair included(which he was sensitive about).

Portraits are a very, very difficult thing to get right. That's why I don't honestly understand the obsession with them, or with "lifelike" statues. If you want to put up a monument to a great person, display something highlighting their achievement. Don't faff about with trying to make sure their forehead are in proportion to their lower lips.
Waste of time and no artistic merit whatsoever.

One cannot speak of "artistic merit" in one sentence and ignore a sense of proportion and form that is the very basis of it. Even the heavily stylised ancient Egyptian art followed such rules. Even some of the very earliest art of as found in caves like Chauvet shows an incredible skill and understanding of these rules. And did so with an economy of line and pigment that is still staggering in its genius of simplicity(they even threw in near Futurist levels of motion into the mix).

Tim76 wrote: »

I'm not talking about likeness, i'm talking about proportion. And the most basic of proportion at that, the ratio between the head and the body. Get that wrong and no amount of "likeness" is going to make the piece look right.

Next time you are walking around town have a look at some of the older statues and you will quickly see that the sculptors understood this fundamental concept.

This.

BlinkingLights · 28-06-2017 09:00PM

Deleted User wrote: »

I hate that yoke in Naas, very jarring

http://www.thejournal.ie/celtic-tiger-road-art-1885896-Jan2015/

It's meant to be a representation of the traffic flow on the M50

Mr.Plough · 28-06-2017 09:03PM

The Banksy piece on the way into Connolly station is average at best.

redarmyblues · 28-06-2017 09:18PM

Wibbs wrote: »

Julius Caesar probably looked very like this, thinning hair included(which he was sensitive about).

According to Mary Beard that portrait is suspected of being a fake.

Wibbs · 28-06-2017 09:25PM

redarmyblues wrote: »

According to Mary Beard that portrait is suspected of being a fake.

Oh it might well be, but my point was that the Romans looked for warts and all realism in their portraits and as such made very recognisable human beings in the stone.

Screen-Shot-2015-12-15-at-1.12.16-PM.png

Screen-Shot-2015-12-15-at-1.12.16-PM.png

All "real" people. Little stylisation going on.

osarusan · 28-06-2017 09:37PM

Tim76 wrote: »

The Irish had no problem sculpting proper statues until recently. There are plenty of them from the 18th/19th centuries littered around the major cities to attest to that.

The "sculptor" in this case needs to go back and study his 1st year art college notes. He seems to have absolutely no concept of the proportions of the human body.

I would love to hear his reasoning behind this abomination.

To be honest I think it's likely that there was artistic licence being (less than successfully) exercised than the sculptor simply not understanding the concept of proportions.

redarmyblues · 28-06-2017 09:57PM

Wibbs wrote: »

Oh it might well be, but my point was that the Romans looked for warts and all realism in their portraits and as such made very recognisable human beings in the stone.

All "real" people. Little stylisation going on.

There is always a possibility of caricature with Roman statuary and painting, with unflattering characteristics of the individual being emphasised for political and propaganda purposes by opponents or sometimes just to amuse the customers of a bar. While it is now difficult if not impossible to identify individuals now, it seems likely that stock images of the "personalities" of a period would have been recognised throughout the empire thus guaranteeing a ready audience for work of this kind. That said I am not arguing with your proposals, just saying that we must be careful about taking Roman portraits at "face value" as it were.

28-06-2017 10:07PM

I really liked the Anna Livia monument on O'Connell Street. I liked sitting there on the granite listening to the water. It's just a pity the city is full of so many dirty scruffbags who congregated around it and left the place like a pigsty when they moved on. It couldn't have been cleaned enough times in a day. I'll never understand people who litter, or why Irish society still hasn't had a cultural change on this issue.

redarmyblues · 28-06-2017 10:25PM

Tim76 wrote: »

The Irish had no problem sculpting proper statues until recently. There are plenty of them from the 18th/19th centuries littered around the major cities to attest to that.

The "sculptor" in this case needs to go back and study his 1st year art college notes. He seems to have absolutely no concept of the proportions of the human body.

I would love to hear his reasoning behind this abomination.

Interestingly enough the stone statutory of this period was not made by what we now called artists, but why we now called tradesmen. Most of these workers would have served their time as stone cutters, though a few would have apprenticed as stone carvers, whatever their original training, they would generally specialise as either foliage carvers or figure carvers.

Edward Smyth who carved and designed the river heads on Gandon's Custom House is the best known of these and was the son of a stone cutter and would have learnt his trade at his father's side. A son of Edward is responsible for the lovely tympanum group on Longford Cathedral, and a son or grandson of the Longford Smyth was active in Ireland until the 1940's.

If anybody is interest in this sort of thing, I recommend the wonderful book Stone Mad by sculptor and stone carver Seamus Murphy and even if you don't, I still recommend for it really is a beautiful thing.

Ireland's crappiest public art.

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