Paolozzi in Redheugh's Rigg

A good example of truly awful corporate sculpture.

Wonder if it was sponsored by RBS - I'll have to go check next time I'm out that way.

Im so surprised that so few people seem to like Paolozzi's work - I really like it myself. I like the *chunkiness* of it.

Aesthetically it's brutal and dehumanizing. One might commission such a piece as, say, a war memorial of a particularly deadly air raid.

The fact that it stands outside the Royal Bank of Scotland, and has been commissioned by them, speaks volumes. It looks a human being being crushed by a machine.

I quite like all his stuff that is dotted around Edinburgh, and the kids like to climb on them - sturdy art.

Not sure I see it as dehumanising, any more than work by HR Giger - it's just incorporating human and mechanical/structural elements.

Yes, but there is a difference in intention.

As commented elsewhere on this site, Paolozzi (and his ilk) is a "safe" option for corporates/local government when they want to drop some random sculpture in front of a new office block.

There was probably as much thought into the look and context of the sculpture by the suits who commissioned it as we would put into choosing an IKEA flat-pack set of shelves.

When Picasso painted Guernica he depicted human suffering through the abstract. His intention is clear 60 years later. This sculpture likewise conveys human suffering, but not in a way the bank or (very likely) the artist intended.

Now that RBS have no dough to splash around we don't need to worry any more about them inflicting Paolozzis on any one - see, every recession has a silver lining

Yes but as an RBS customer it was my dough they spent on it !

Think of it as an investment (isn't that what they always say about the extortionate cost of art?)