There's nothing worse than a nasty art critic. Wait, most of them are nasty - I mean violent art critics. Cathy Marks reports from Australia in the Independent - Self-styled art vigilantes threaten to destroy public sculptures they detest:
Public artworks are often loathed by the public, but a sculpture in Sydney has aroused an unusual degree of antipathy. A group of self-styled art vigilantes is threatening to destroy the work unless the council dismantles it.Whoa there hoss! What's the problem?
The group, which calls itself the Revolutionary Council for the Removal of Bad Art in Public Places, has set a three-month deadline for the offending sculpture to be whisked away. If the deadline is not met, it says, the work will be defaced or destroyed.
"We have blowtorches, angle grinders and bolt cutters, and we will use them if necessary," said a spokesman, Dave Jarvoo.
The work, Stones Against The Sky, is made up of seven steel poles crowned by large artificial stones. Sydneysiders call the work, in a plaza in front of an apartment block in King's Cross, the city's red-light district, "Poo on Sticks".I couldn't find a snap of it, but here's another one from the same series. It's more like poo on chopsticks.
The group, formed two years ago, is believed to comprise teachers and students from two nearby art colleges. Mr Jarvoo said members had written letters of complaint to the local council and submitted a petition against the sculpture, but with no success. "We are being forced to consider taking matters into our own hands," he told The Australian newspaper.That sounds like a rough bunch!
Mr Jarvoo said other works would be vandalised unless they were removed. "The mission of the council is to eradicate the disease and discomfort that bad art inflicts on the general psyche," he said.Why do I get the feeling that the taxpayers have already suffered the ultimate discomfort - they paid for this stuff?
Ken Unsworth, the artist paid about £14,000 for Stones Against the Sky, said he was unmoved by the group's threat.
