Public Art Trivia http://trivia.publicartonline.net Trivia about Public Art Around the World Mon, 19 May 2008 09:18:00 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5 en Pilfering Public Art http://trivia.publicartonline.net/?p=4 http://trivia.publicartonline.net/?p=4#comments Mon, 19 May 2008 09:18:00 +0000 admin http://trivia.publicartonline.net/?p=4 Could there be anything more apprehensible than pilfering Public Art? Well, maybe not if it is crap!  The worst part about stolen public art,  I guess, is not knowing what happened to it. Where do they hide it, for a start. How do they keep it a secret, I’d have to tell someone. What sort of person would go to those lengths.
Manneken Pis, the little weeing boy of Brussels statue, probably takes the honors for being stolen the most. Manneken, however, has always managed to find his way home. At last count he has been stolen a total of seven times over the centuries. The most damaged, I think goes to the Fountain of Neptune Florence.
Australia has had its fair share of public art pilfering, Larry La Trobe the small bronze statue in Melbourne went missing and had to be later replaced as pedestrians went though withdrawal symptoms. In Perth, Western Australia, they had to contend with an angle grinding mad man who continued to remove the head off the Yagan statue (an Aboriginal warrior).
During the war, soldiers removed the fingers off the statues in the fountains in Piazza Navona, Italy, as souvenirs.
In 2005 a 5ft (1.5m) bronze statue of a soldier was taken from Nuneaton’s Riversley Park, England. The following year a life-size statue of Olympic champion Steve Ovett was cut off at the ankles in Sussex City, England. One of his bronze legs, was later discovered smoldering in a pile of ashes. It is believed poor old Ovett was melted down for scrap metal (ew nasty).

The most notorious, though it probably doesn’t count as theft, would have to be Saddam Hussein’s public art demise. After a few hours of slipper slapping and false celebrations the big, bronze, bully finally fell at the feet of his very unhappy civilians. I remember watching and waiting for ages (even doing a ring around so all my friends wouldn’t miss it) for the icon to fall. The statue (or what little remained of it) was dragged through the streets so everyone had a chance to slap it with their shoes. I don’t think anyone cared about that Public Art Pilfering, it had long worn out its used by date.

]]> http://trivia.publicartonline.net/?feed=rss2&p=4 What does public art and prisons have in common? http://trivia.publicartonline.net/?p=3 http://trivia.publicartonline.net/?p=3#comments Mon, 19 May 2008 07:06:00 +0000 admin http://trivia.publicartonline.net/?p=3 Nothing I would suspect. Ah, but you would be mistaken. What better way for someone who has time on their hands than to chisel away on a piece of public art. In 1860, 23 year old William Stanford found himself charged with robbery and given a 22 year jail sentence. Thug, horse thief and all around bad guy became a nightmare prisoner in Melbourne’s notorious Pentridge Prison. Considered a hopeless case he spent much of his time alone carving figures in old soup bones. The chaplain of the prison, who was unable to make any headway with the angry Stanford, noticed that he had a particular talent in drawing. Later when he discovered a carved bone, the Chaplain showed it to the governor and persuaded him to allow Stanford to have art lessons. I would have thought the governor would have been more concerned about what was Stanford using to carve the bones (but I digress). Stanford excelled in his new form of expression and it wasn’t long before he was being mentored by Charles Summers (of Burke and Wills Memorial fame). William eventually submitted a design for a fountain (which he won) and was left chipping away for four years at stone hauled from the prison quarry. Click here for more info on the Standford Fountain. Ew and something quite creepy, the boy on top of the fountain was modeled from the governor’s son.

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