To think the BBC need to remove the Eric Gill sculpture?

[Twoshoesnewshoes]

Is there a thread on this? Couldn’t find one.

I’ve just been reading that someone has scaled the BBC building and attacked the sculpture by Eric Gill with a hammer.
Apparently it’s still being repaired from the last attack.
It prompted me to revisit info on the sculpture and sculptor.

AIBU in thinking it needs to be removed?

It isn't all or nothing. Just like the modernisation of Noddy and other writings doesn't mean everything has to go. We can make small steps. When women wanted equality in workplaces we'd get the front line and heavy work thrown up to show why it couldn't happen. But it doesn't mean that things can't happen and change in different circumstances.

So we scrub all buildings of medieval cherubs too?

(Michelangelo by the way)

It is an issue, a lot of great artists were and are very flawed humans and some like Gill lived their lives beyond the edge of acceptability. The art is not the artist, but there can and should be some reflection of how society remembers or treats that artist.

However, as people say, if we start down that route, where do we stop? Don't always assume society will have a fixed view of what is and isn't acceptable morality for an artist - see the Nazis and their concept of "Degenerate Art".

most pieces of art and sculpture will have used real life models, even if the subject is historical.
the model used for Ariel is clearly a child.

Change going forward, absolutely yes! Change the past? That is pretence.

It’s certainly ‘all or nothing’ if we’re going to subject every extant artwork or building to a form of moral test before we decide its worth.

Are we up for a burning of most rock and roll records from tbe fifties to the eighties?

It’s a piece of art, YABU

Colston was a statue OF him not by him, so yes it needed to be moved to a museum and put in context.

If you removed from public view every piece of art created by someone who exhibited vile behaviour some of the worlds most beautiful cities and galleries would be much less so. Would you cover up Rome or the pyramids because they were built by slaves?

Art is precious. It raises us above ourselves. We need more of it not less.

Go and do something more worthwhile with your time.

NB this does not include burning books.

This, this, this!!!!
We should NOT be encouraging the erasure of our past mistakes.
How the hell do future generations learn the lessons of history if we have removed them?

But once the censorship starts, where does it stop? Who is the arbiter?

YABU - nothing wrong with the statue itself.

And we are horribly naive if we think we are so enlightened and civilised that we won’t be looking back in 50 years time and thinking ‘how the hell did we let that happen?’

Yanbu. He was a despicable man. That statue should not be in pride of place anywhere.

An infinitely more deserving artist should be given the space to work on.

@Luredbyapomegranate it IS a sculpture of a child who has potentially been sexually abused by the sculptor.

It’s not actually Ariel because Ariel is a fictional character!

like the Colston statue, it’s a sculpture of someone very controversial and distressing for some people who have been affected by abuse, same as the the Colston statue was OF someone associated with slavery.

Meant to add - is it decided by the mob who want to run around pulling down/defacing whichever statue they like?

is it the government? As mentioned above differ governments (see eg Nazis) have had differing views as to what is acceptable.

who gets to decide? And should they get to decide on behalf of all future societies? Once the art has gone, it’s gone forever.

educate, inform, place in con text, and learn from it for the future.

the lack of history teaching in education is becoming really problematic. People are losing sight of our human trajectory.

@Luredbyapomegranate please don’t tell me to do something more worthwhile when I’m querying showcasing a paedophile. Why make this personal?

But the pyramids, for example, were built by slaves. How is that different? Without extensive, unrelenting human suffering they wouldn't be there. So we must pull the pyramids down?

He is dead. He is no longer benefiting by the presence of the statue. Would I buy a Gary Glitter record? No I would not. I would refuse to line his bank account.

I'm slightly on the fence but on balance I'm against censorship and erasure of art/history, however morally reprehensible (and Gill was an absolute fucker, no question) the artist.

If known to be modelled on his daughter whom he abused, this would change my mind about displaying it in such a public place at this time. I haven't heard that though.

Agree, especially knowing what he was. And the BBCs association with Jimmy Saville.

Totally disagree. Art can be separated from the artist.

It’s a male figure, complete with penis. His daughters were adults by the time the Ariel sculpture was made.

No one outside of Gill's family knew about the abuse until long after his death.

He was not an uncontroversial figure in his lifetime for other reasons.

But the idea that retaining a statue by Gill means the BBC is endorsing paedophillia is rather odd.

His art is embedded in a lot of British Institutions, why pick on the BBC in particular?