Friday 25 February 2011

108 Cannon Street EC4

The names alone are enough to induce deep gloom: Seifert and Tsereteli. Possibly the worst architect in London, and one of the worst sculptors in the world, working on the same building.
Siefert's building is one of his usual cheapo horrors, clad in wafer-thin marble and glazed in tinted glass. On the corner is a niche containing a bronze statue by Zurab Tsereteli, self-styled 'People's Artist of the USSR.'
A muscly nude male has burst through a crucifix-shaped hole in a wall, holding his hands aloft in triumph.Two angels hold hands above.
Dating from 1990, the clunking symbolism is about the fall of the Berlin Wall just a few months before.
We can be thankful that the work is tiny by Tsereteli standards. His widely-mocked monument to Peter the Great in Moscow is the eighth tallest statue in the world, and according to a World Tourist poll, the tenth ugliest. Tsereteli's close friendship with former Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov resulted in his work being installed all over the city. We cannot sneer however - we still have the Victoria Memorial.

1 comment:

Austen Redman said...

So what do you have against the Victoria Memorial. Does the London version have toilets beneath - mots provincial ones do, so are at least useful when nor aesthetically appealing.