Joan Bakewell comments on appropriate locations for public sculpture.
The world not only has too many people — parts of it risk having too much art. The stuff is proliferating at an alarming rate. And it’s better in some places than others.
Returning from the serenity of low-horizon Paris (they keep their skyscrapers away from the centre), we arrived in the convivial bustle and wide-arching glories of St Pancras Station. Alas, things have got worse there. Not only is the 20-ton monstrosity called The Meeting Place – a sculpture of two people locked in an embrace (a work Antony Gormley described as “typical of the crap out there”) – still disfiguring the lines of the Victorian masterpiece, but more has been added. There are now two floating clouds suspended in front of the clock. Atop the clouds is a medley of seven figures that you struggle to decipher.
The world not only has too many people — parts of it risk having too much art. The stuff is proliferating at an alarming rate. And it’s better in some places than others.
Returning from the serenity of low-horizon Paris (they keep their skyscrapers away from the centre), we arrived in the convivial bustle and wide-arching glories of St Pancras Station. Alas, things have got worse there. Not only is the 20-ton monstrosity called The Meeting Place – a sculpture of two people locked in an embrace (a work Antony Gormley described as “typical of the crap out there”) – still disfiguring the lines of the Victorian masterpiece, but more has been added. There are now two floating clouds suspended in front of the clock. Atop the clouds is a medley of seven figures that you struggle to decipher.