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.   

Thoughts on the Proposal for a New Lawrence Statue

Greek terracotta statue of Priapus, Hellenistic period 

(c. late 4th-3rd century B.C.)

There's already a life-size bronze statue of D. H. Lawrence, by Diana Thomson, standing in the grounds of Nottingham University; a barefoot figure with his trousers rolled up (don't ask me why) and rather awkwardly holding a blue flower. In addition, there's a bronze bust of Lawrence, also by Thomson, situated in the Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery. 

However, increasingly proud of their local boy - or, rather, increasingly hopeful that such works attract visitors and that they might capitalize on his controversial reputation and continuing popularity - plans are being made for a new work to be erected in his hometown of Eastwood.

Lawrence scholars, members of the D. H. Lawrence Society, and staff at the Lawrence Heritage Centre, all met recently with representatives of the borough council to discuss ideas. Also present - and spearheading the campaign for a new statue - was super-glamorous local MP, Gloria De Piero, who, according to a press report, thinks it ridiculous that the Lawrence name isn't being exploited to the maximum; never mind what he contributed to English letters, just think what he can do for jobs and business!       

My own view on this matter is rather closer to that of Lawrence activist David Brock, who argues that if there's to be a new statue, then it needs to be a creatively challenging work that isn't there simply to attract tourists and amuse the locals. If it were up to me, I would go for a Classical style nude terracotta figure, sans fig-leaf, but with an erection of priapic proportions from which hung a sign saying: The phallus is the bridge to the future.  

This, I think, would be true to the Lawrence who wanted to shock what he described as people's castrated spirituality and remind us that the phallus is a great sacred symbol of potency and the active life which has been denied to us within Christian moral culture.