Interesting that ribbons and Marie both see something of a
Metropolis robot in the MW statue; that never occured to me. Also very interesting comments, Neapolitan:-
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The MW memorial figure departs from concepts found in classic art like e.g. Venus De Milo. The figure's hips are less curvaceous, the stance more rigid than Venus DM. There was this sense of combining sensuality and modesty in classic art. Statues and paintings of females usually present women partially bare, with either long hair or clothing obscuring the more revealing parts. The MW memorial is less sensual however more revealing - baring the woo woo for all to see. I guess that is most contravention part of the memorial. One thing to take into consideration is that third wave feminism (maybe not all but some do) take pride and see nudity (stripping, pole dancing etc) as empowering. There is a sort of an irony to that where first wave feminist fought not to be treated like a sex object. The whole things seems more like the artist's ode to feminism more than a memorial honouring MW.
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Regarding the abstract part, here is the artist's own explanation:-
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...artist Maggi Hambling said that her work "involves this tower of intermingling female forms culminating in the figure of the woman at the top who is challenging, and ready to challenge, the world."
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Originally Posted by OccultHawk
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nyt...ondon.amp.html
"This is public art intended to address its audience in real life, in the present tense. As Virginia Woolf once said of Wollstonecraft, “We hear her voice and trace her influence even now among the living.”
That is a good point, imo
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Thanks for the NYT article, which is far kinder than I have been about the statue. I take the point that a memorial can do more than just represent a figure dressed up in period clothes - that it can speak to its modern audience too. But in view of this fact:-
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According to the organizers, this is the first public statue dedicated to Mary Wollstonecraft in the world.
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...and these stats:-
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"Over 90% of London's monuments celebrate men," reads the campaign website. "This is set against a population of 51% women."
The charity Public Monuments and Sculpture Association has a catalog of all 925 public sculptures in the UK. When campaigner Perez analyzed the list, she found that only 158 statues depict women, according to the charity's website. Of these, almost half were based on fictional figures, 14 were of the Virgin Mary and 46 were of royalty -- meaning there were only 25 statues of historical, non-royal women in the UK.
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... Maggie Hambling's monument seems like a missed opportunity to me, especially as it is in so many ways a retrograde step - to celebrate women, yet again, by focusing on that lucky percentile of attractive women and showing them with their clothes off. The modern twist, perhaps to distract attention from such an outdated depiction, is to show the woman rising up out of an abstract bag of butcher's offal. Nice.
To my mind, another way to link MW to the present would've been to show the real MW, with her inkpot and quills, sending a message to a modern woman intent on her cellphone. If that idea sounds cheesy, give me the artist's $190,000 and perhaps I can come up with a better one.