Bring Me the Head of Oscar Wilde

Visualisation of how Eduardo Paolozzi's Oscar Wilde 

sculpture will look when installed in Chelsea

The Paolozzi Foundation

 

 

A new sculpture of Oscar Wilde - or, more precisely, of the Irish playwright's head cast in black bronze, lying on its side and sliced into segments - has been condemned by his grandson, Merlin Holland, on the grounds that it fails to adequately convey Wilde's genius and is, from a purely aesthetic perspective, absolutely hideous (his words, not mine) [1].      

 

I have to say, Holland's criticism of the work, which is based on a maquette by the late Eduardo Paolozzi [2] - one of the most seminal British artists of the post-war era and a pioneer of Pop Art - seems rather ridiculous. And the fact that he should describe the work as unacceptable is troubling.

 

Holland may know more about his grandfather, whose life he has researched and written about extensively, than anybody else, but he has failed to appreciate that Paolozzi's cubo-surrealist sculpture is not meant to be a lifelike representation, nor is it attempting to capture Wilde's joie de vivre. 

 

Actually, the piece is very much in line with other sculptural works by Paolozzi; see for example his piece entitled The Head of Invention (1989), located at the entrance of the Design Museum in Kensington - click here - and if one were to criticise the Wilde sculpture it would be on the grounds that one has seen this kind of thing before.         

 

In sum: it lacks uniqueness, but it's not gloomy or hideous and it's certainly better than the hilariously bad memorial statue of Wilde by Danny Osborne located in Dubin's Merrion Square - click here - though not as challenging as Maggi Hambling's A Conversation with Oscar Wilde (1998), which can be found off the Strand in London, in which the playwright rises from the dead, cigarette in hand: click here.    

If Paolozzi's work tells us more about him than it does Wilde - and I admit it probably does - I can see this might be an issue for some, including Wilde's grandson. But that doesn't trouble me as an admirer of both men and, besides, our task ultimately is to learn to appreciate the piece as an object in its own right and not as something tied to a human subject.     

 

Notes

 

[1] I'm quoting from the article by Dalya Alberge entitled '"Absolutely hideous": new London sculpture of Oscar Wilde condemned by his grandson', in The Guardian (21 September 2024): click here. 

 

[2] In 1995, Paolozzi along with eleven other invited artists submitted a design for a statue of Oscar Wilde to a committee chaired by Sir Jeremy Isaacs. The committee, of which Merlin Holland was a member, eventually shortlisted six candidates, including Paolozzi, and requested they create maquettes (i.e., scale models). Ultimately, Paolozzi's design was rejected as too brutalist and the committee chose Maggi Hambling's more playful (if somewhat macabre) sculpture. 

 

A Statue of One's Own: Notes on Laury Dizengremel's Sculpture of Virginia Woolf

Bronze sculpture of Virginia Woolf seated on a riverside bench 

in Richmond Upon Thames by Laury Dizengremel (2022) 

Photo by Maria Thanassa (2023)|

 

They made a statue of us / And they put it by the riverside / Now tourists come and sit with us  

Blow bubbles with their gum / Take photographs of fun, have fun [1]

 

 

I. 

 

When plans were first announced to place Laury Dizengremel's sculpture of Virgina Woolf on a bench overlooking the Thames, concerns were raised by members of the Richmond Society who, recalling details of her death [2], feared it was not only insensitive, but  also potentially triggering [3].

 

Richmond Council, however, were not persuaded and supported the siting of the statue, where it would be encountered by far more people than if it were tucked away on a residential street (although whether it encourages discussion of mental health issues, feminism, and sexuality, is debatable).

 

The £50,000 bronze sculpture was finally unveiled in November 2022. Speaking at the unveiling ceremony, Woolf's great-great niece, Sophie Partridge, said critics of the project were narrow minded and insisted that Woolf should be celebrated for her work, not defined by the way she died.   

 

 

II.

 

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend the above ceremony. However, I finally got to see the work up close and personal this week, when I took the Little Greek on a literary tour of Richmond to celebrate her name day.  

It's not bad: certainly better than the barefoot bronze of D. H. Lawrence by Diana Thomson, that stands in the grounds of Nottingham University; or Danny Osborne's reclining Oscar Wilde Memorial Sculpture, in Merrion Square, Dublin. 

 

At any rate, Dizengremel's life-size figure wasn't irritating and didn't immediately make me want to smash it. But neither did it make me want to sit down and take a selfie, which, apparently, is the aim. For Dizengremel believes art should be accessible and encouraging of interaction. And she is keen to make lofty literary figures like Woolf not only relatable, but touchable. 

 

'It is my hope', she says, 'that Virginia will be rubbed raw ...'

 

I have to say, I imagine that Woolf would have been horrified at the thought of being pawed (one might even say molested) in this manner by members of the public; of becoming public property. Personally, I think people should show more respect, not less, to great figures and learn to keep their hands to themselves. 

 

It would be preferable, in other words, if people remained a little afraid of Virginia Woolf - her intelligence, her demeanour, her sapphic superiority and disdain for the masses and modernity - rather than emboldened by a bronze figure to the point where they sit and put an arm around her shoulders in an act of gross overfamiliarity.

 

Finally, let me ask those who think this sculpture is a victory for feminism: How is turning a remarkable woman into an object and plaything in this manner challenging stereotypes?

 

 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] With apologies to Regina Spektor, whose lyrics to the song 'Us' I have slightly reworked here. 

      'Us' was a 2006 single release from the studio album Soviet Kitsch (Sire Records, 2004). To listen to the track and watch the official video, dir. Adria Petty, on YouTube, click here. 

[2] On 28 March 1941, Woolf, aged 59, drowned herself by filling her coat pockets with stones and then calmly walking into the River Ouse near her home in East Sussex. 

      Woolf had been troubled by mental illness throughout her life; she was institutionalised several times and attempted suicide on at least two other occasions. Some commentators trace this back to the sexual abuse she (allegedly) suffered a the hands of her two much older half-brothers, George and Gerald Duckworth, about which I have recently written: click here. 

[3] The group's chairman, Barry May, rather ludicrously suggested that the sculpture 'might distress anyone who knows her story and is in a vulnerable state of mind'. One suspects he had ulterior motives in opposing the siting of the work by the river; perhaps he suffers from automatonophobia, or perhaps he's just afraid of Virgina Woolf.