Blog
Being toppled and lying down
31/12/2020
In a recent webinar given by PSSA (Public Statues and Sculpture Association) with the Burlington magazine, Hew Locke says 'When Coulston came down it was not the erasure of history but the making of history...it should be in a museum on is side, raise it up and it becomes an aesthetic object, but on its side the power is not there any more'.
This 'toppling' ( always this word, not pushed, not fallen) was a long time coming, and when it came it was on a roll of rage. The equation is: silent figure on pedestal ( another loaded word), vast anger, energy, movement of people, shouting, pushing, falling, a short moment of the energy of gravity, stillness. Like other statue topplings the moments of falling are thrilling. Once he's down, as Hew says he - it - becomes an aesthetic object, starts a new life as a thing with no life, meaning, dignity; becomes like lumber, to be stored somewhere.
Maybe it would have been more fitting for Coulston to have been left where he fell under the sea, distorted by the water's movement, to be peered down at from above as he silts up, becomes green, gets barnacles, becomes an object of dreams? It would be a symmetrical end for someone who caused other bodies to lie at the bottom of he ocean.
Statues like this, commemorating people who don't matter any more, or matter in a different way, had become largely invisible unless you had reason to be narked by them. And a plinth isn't something you normally notice but suddenly they are interesting. Platform, dais, pedestal, podium - I've been thinking about them recently for my own sculptures, thinking about giving the sculptures more presence, pushing them forward like a balcony bra, like shouting, like flags, to make them more seen.
Lying down can draw attention to yourself too. Fallen statues have a poetic pathos when the subject is not hated. Is it possible to hate a statue that's lying down? It's pretty amazing that these lumps of metal and stone are still read as human, as being hurtable.
I remember a little film that demonstrated stability, the movement from one stable state to another. Salt is poured into a pile, and at a certain point it topples, and what is left is a newly stable form.
This 'toppling' ( always this word, not pushed, not fallen) was a long time coming, and when it came it was on a roll of rage. The equation is: silent figure on pedestal ( another loaded word), vast anger, energy, movement of people, shouting, pushing, falling, a short moment of the energy of gravity, stillness. Like other statue topplings the moments of falling are thrilling. Once he's down, as Hew says he - it - becomes an aesthetic object, starts a new life as a thing with no life, meaning, dignity; becomes like lumber, to be stored somewhere.
Maybe it would have been more fitting for Coulston to have been left where he fell under the sea, distorted by the water's movement, to be peered down at from above as he silts up, becomes green, gets barnacles, becomes an object of dreams? It would be a symmetrical end for someone who caused other bodies to lie at the bottom of he ocean.
Statues like this, commemorating people who don't matter any more, or matter in a different way, had become largely invisible unless you had reason to be narked by them. And a plinth isn't something you normally notice but suddenly they are interesting. Platform, dais, pedestal, podium - I've been thinking about them recently for my own sculptures, thinking about giving the sculptures more presence, pushing them forward like a balcony bra, like shouting, like flags, to make them more seen.
Lying down can draw attention to yourself too. Fallen statues have a poetic pathos when the subject is not hated. Is it possible to hate a statue that's lying down? It's pretty amazing that these lumps of metal and stone are still read as human, as being hurtable.
I remember a little film that demonstrated stability, the movement from one stable state to another. Salt is poured into a pile, and at a certain point it topples, and what is left is a newly stable form.
