Statue to honour Wollstonecraft

I feel a Banksy coming on...

I like this image from the bbc as it reminds me of Rodin, who I adore, but as Onjn says, that would be in the context of a gallery, or a decorative piece. Not public statue commemoration. I do find the woman at the top a little odd after the boiling exciting forms below.

I have to keep reminding myself it's "for her," and I get that, but then, why can't she have an actual image of her? Must she still be hidden?

twitter.com/fawcettsociety/status/1326122041024655363?s=09

Beam me up Scottie I've had enough
It's trending on twtter by the way

They got rid of that stencil
Whaaaaaat??? F.F.S I used to walk past it daily. It was so much better, and didn't take years of debate and £100s of 1000s to create.

Apparently this is not a statue of Wollstonecraft....

So can we have our money back?

“....it’s a porn body”
Says DH

DH has just taught a course on Wollstonecraft to first year undergrads, mainly young women.
He was going to let them know about the statue -but then saw it and thought better...

I genuinely question whether the artist actually knows who Mary is, or what she did
I agree she's just picked some random quote from the Internet and used her imagination to say what she wants to say. It's a complete failure, embarrassing.

Fuxake. I was so happy when I heard about this and now I'm bursting with rage.

I HATE it with a visceral passion and am so disappointed. My expertise is in art theory, and frankly I just think the sculpture is trash, and does not in any way fulfil the brief of public sculpture. It’s not a gallery piece or a decorative piece, it’s a commemoration and educational piece.

When you look at it, you wouldn’t even think it’s meant to represent her or her work. It just looks like any piece of budget D list sculpture, with some kind of raccoon shoved up her fanny.

I genuinely question whether the artist actually knows who Mary is, or what she did. Equally I have to question whether she gave any thought to the function and context of the work.

It’s dire. It’s an insult to Mary, and an insult to efforts to ensure greater representation of women in art—there are quite enough poorly sculpted decorative female nudes out there.

"Clothes define people and restrict people, they restrict people's reaction. She's naked and she's every woman.

Nakedness defines and restricts people - in particular women too. I've read the etymology of the word doesn't just imply a natural state , but rather not fully clothed, lacking something. Stripped.

This isn't 'everywoman'. If that was the idea, I reckon the unknown artist who created the Willendorf Venus did a better job.

This is so disappointing, I have contributed to the campaign for this bloody thing. There has been a graffiti stencil of her on the side of the Unitarian Church in Newington Green for years which is a much better tribute imo.

NeurotrashWarrior
Losing sight of primary aims definitely feels like a contender for what's happened here. I'd just like those who made the choice, whatever the reasons, to take a bit of responsibility for what is unfortunately a rather poor choice instead of hiding behind the artist.

It's like the Jonathan Creek episode where an artist includes him in an ensemble mural as a naked cherub and he's expected to be flattered when it's obviously totally and utterly humiliating for him. Why would anyone be flattered by being depicted as a tiny, naked person? It really is baffling what went through these people's minds.

Arrrggh.

That's so fucking regressive.

Once again it's all about the male gaze.

Oh I forgot about her shell at Aldeburgh - now that I liked.

Her being naked is obviously shitty, but I also noticed she appears to be coming out of water or waves and it's ...a tad insensitive seeing as she tried to drown herself in the Thames.

It's not 'everywoman'. It's Wollstonecraft 8.

Crikey, a naked Darwin. That has cheered me up somewhat.

But yes, Shedbuilder, my overriding emotion is sadness and disappointment. I was looking forward to MW being rightly celebrated, and instead we have this silly farce. I've not seen anyone yet who likes the statue, and maybe there's a crumb of reassurement, that everyone but everyone is instantly aware of the very obvious issue with it, beyond being unattractive shape and material.

Agree, too that there were good reasons to choose a female artist - and it's just a shame I think Hambling has got this so wrong.

But I don't really understand this one at all. I keep looking and it doesn't get better. The picture that they chose to go ahead from looked far more organic and less detailed.

There is a sculpture of Darwin naked, they did not make him a pimple on a beef bone.

Now someone ought to throw it in the river that I would clap for.