Issue No. 596
Culture
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25 - 31 July 2002 Issue No. 596 Culture |
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Up on the plinths
Public sculpture has been problematic for the best part of a century, perhaps more, sculpture being the first of the major genres to have embarked on the tortured path to its own deconstruction. The journey probably began in earnest with Rodin's late work, which displays an almost perverse obsession with the disintegration of form, though it would be perfectly possible to argue that the seeds were always there. Donatello -- the great hero of early Renaissance sculpture (and public sculpture, in the end, has been a five centuries-long take on Renaissance models that were themselves interpolated on antique forms) -- managed, towards the end of his life, to turn Mary Magdalene into an elongated piece of molten wax. Within three decades he had moved from the overwhelmingly senatorial presences of his bas- reliefs to this distressing essay in pathos, and it is, tellingly, the very late work that was to resonate with artists from the late 19th century onwards.
It is, perhaps, not overly contentious to suggest that modern sculpture is an oxymoron: conceptually it is flawed at the most fundamental level, and the strategies adopted throughout the 20th century in an attempt to reinvigorate its practice have never been overly convincing. Burying a five hundred metre copper rod in the ground is all well and good, but what then? Crushing old cars into cubes is perfectly fine, but where to go from there? More persuasive than such mid-20th century tactics by far are those artists who have moved away from the static, or else who, in the most heroic of modernism's phases, decided to restrict themselves to "laboratory" pieces. Least persuasive of all were the attempts to translate painterly experiments into three dimensions: here one need only finger the sculptors who would develop cubist pastiches.
But the figure study, on a pedestal, in a public square? How on earth can anyone find anything original to say in 2002? This kind of thing long ago ceased to be art, long ago became an exercise in the design of street furniture. The commission, as far as it can now be understood, is to be as uncontentious, as discreet as possible, and to do so in a celebratory way. The task is impossible.
Cairo, admittedly, has some less than anonymous monuments along such lines. Saad Zaghloul, atop his lotus column pedestal on Qasr Al-Nil Bridge, in front of the Opera House, makes for an impressive diversion. The equestrian statue of Ibrahim Pasha, in the square once occupied by the old opera house, has also accrued meanings that were clearly not intended. It has gained as the square was redeveloped, as it slipped steadily down market, and now stands, Ozymandias like, an echo of vanity amid the desultory exercise of low-key commerce. It is, in addition, technically outstanding.
Later attempts have tended towards kitsch. The recent fad for polyester resin, treated to look like bronze but at a fraction of the cost, is commemoration on the cheap. I must confess a certain fondness for Mustafa Kamel, standing in the centre of the circus that bears his name, though only, perhaps, because the one-way system downtown means that one approaches him almost always from behind, and the arching of the back, the dramatically foreshortened shoulders and the improbable bend of the left leg make it look, from this direction at least, as if he is embarked upon the most extravagant of curtseys. This statue, too, has a reasonable setting. There is no problem of scale. It is a smallish square, has yet to be redeveloped with monstrously proportioned high-rises. This particular nationalist hero can still hold his own.
Sadly, the recently unveiled statue of Abdel-Moniem Riyad has been less favoured in terms of positioning. The only flattering approach is along Antikhana, when the scale begins to make some sense. Approach from Tahrir Square, though, or peer down from above the railings of the fly-over, and the statue, despite its polished granite plinth, is lost in the terrible muddle that is this particular intersection. Nothing could hold its own in this space, not even the spreading backside of the Egyptian Museum. After three wars, and a lifetime of heroics, this particular hero has met his match.
The situation is not helped by the addition of carriage lamps, suburbia's ultimate accessories. Quite how anyone might assume they could lend dignity to such an enterprise defies rational thought, but there they are, for the time being at least, though how long they will remain is anyone's guess. This particular part of town has, after all, never been prepared to settle down, to fix itself in aspict. And the constant mutations, in this particular case, at least, are reassuring. The final word has yet to be said.
It is, of course, almost impossible to approach the statute as it stands, in isolation, on its very own traffic island. To do so involves risk to life and limb. I cannot, therefore, be sure precisely of what it is made, though it is to be most fervently hoped he has not been subjected to the resinous indignity of poor old Mohamed Abdel-Wahab.
Public sculpture: it is such a terrible mine field. But such is the reification of imagination, such the inability to escape the taxonomies of Renaissance Europe, that we find ourselves here again and again and again. One might despair at the consistency but it is a habit that is unlikely to be broken any time soon. Some things seem predestined. To stand atop a column, having led a distinguished life and devoted oneself to public service, is one of them.
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