bin-it

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Early in 2005, Channel 4 asked the public to nominate the buildings they wanted to see demolished in the series 'Demolition'. We can do the same here on Big Art Mob. There's a lot of ugly, inappropriate public art out there: badly commissioned, insensitively sited, poorly maintained or just a plain bad idea in the first place. Join BIN-IT and post images of the public art you don't want to see!

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Vulcan

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Eduardo Paolozzi (1924-2005) was a Scottish proto-pop artist of Italian parents. He designed a lively mosaic for Tottenham Ct Road Central Line platform on the London Underground, was a keen collector of advertising ephemera and a prolific pop-collagist. He spent his mature years as a sculptor producing lumpen, mechanical-looking sculpture. These were often overly illustrative works which yoked the human form to the mechanical. I wish he hadn't. They are ugly and outdated (this kind of approach was far more successful, even exiting and dynamic in the early 1900s, when it was new – in the work of artists like Jacob Epstein and his 'Rock Drill'). It has always been an easy call for local councils and developers to call on the established well,tried names and commission one of Paolozzi's unsmypathetic, brutal pop-cyborgs or mechanical collages in an attempt to offset and even culturally validate an already over-commercialised and brutally designed cut-price-modernist concrete square or office block. Although such projects are usually devoted to anything but art and culture, this one, strangely enough houses the offices of Arts Council England's NE regional office. Arts Council and other workers in the building are greeted each day by this figure. Paolozzis – bin-'em! They just make the ugly uglier!

Posted by nixspix

Posted on 11th Jul 2008, 10:22
Tags: bin-it bronze figurative newcastle paolozzi

Artist: Eduardo Paolozzi
Title of artwork: Vulcan
Location: Tyne and wear, Newcastle, Central Square, NE1 3PJ

Comments

Alfies Big Art Moblog says:

I love Paolozzi's sculpture, why do you want to "bin it"?

11th May 2009, 14:50

nixspix says:

Can't stand him meself - did I not say? :-) Still, it would be a pretty dull thing if we all liked the same stuff. Why not put something up yourself for the bin – we might start a debate going? Could do with some new postings, this group is a bit singular and self-curated at the moment . . .

20th May 2009, 09:56

alfie says:

It's true that there's plenty out there I don't like, I'll make sure to snap n send

27th May 2009, 19:42

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