Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/03/04/english-resort-town-to-get-gia.html
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As a person who works on public art projects, I have a number of opinions on the art critiques that members of the public occasionally discover within themselves. But I won’t share.
I also have opinions on this work, but the tl;dr would be that it’s probably better than they had a right to expect under the circumstances and the people of Cleethorpes should stfu and accept their free art.
(It’s probably funded by property developers and/or lottery funds, not the council, and I guarantee the artist and artisans aren’t getting rich from it)
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Public art isn’t for the public, I guess.
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Sure, it’s white now.
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It’s for them; it’s not by them.
Maybe it should be.
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Many artists are, in fact, members of the public.
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It’s for them; it’s not by them
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And it will blow down in a winter storm within five years. Either that or some enterprising locals will express their opinions with hacksaws one dark night. The Angel of the North is very much an outlier here.
Whatever you put in the public space as ‘art’, it’s likely that roughly half the population won’t like it, a quarter (if you are lucky) might think it’s the best thing since sliced bread, and the rest won’t care. I’d rather see the money spent on more practical things, as no tarting up exercise is going to persuade meaningful numbers of people to visit Cleethorpes, at least not more than once. I went once…I won’t be returning.
BTW, for me, this is good public art at the seaside. We make trips from Yorkshire to visit this guy 
https://www.visitcleveleys.co.uk/about/seafront/ogre-on-cleveleys-beach/
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I mean, accurate, but ooof!
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Don’t worry Cleethorpes, as attempts to beef up a fading seaside resort go, at least it’s not Blobbyland.
https://www.thevisitor.co.uk/news/morecambe-and-the-blobby-land-saga-20-years-on-1-6755475
And it’ll give some competition to the other top attractions in Cleethorpes:
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It’s better than a statue of people who started a civil war over the right to own slaves.
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As an Austinite, I can’t imagine why the locals would not embrace such weirdness.
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It wasn’t when it was going up. I remember that it was very divisive, although I accept that the local media might have been cherry picking negative views on it.
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Is this the seaside town that they forgot to bomb?
Come, come, come, nuclear bomb.
It doesn’t mention going to see Grimsby Town who play football In Cleethorpes.
If you want to watch Cleethorpes Town, then you have to go to Grimsby. I’m sure there is some sensible and logical reason for this.
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That’s the kind of thing that makes Britain Great.
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I used to live not far from there, and can affirm that Cleethorpes is pretty Grimsby. However, the empty beach was always a good place to exercise the dog and fly a kite.
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Another entry, the Naperville, IL Millenium Cell Bell Tower
Not mentioned in wikipedia, but I was going to college there during construction. The city refused to build unsightly cell towers because of the potential impact on property values (super, duper NIMBY neighborhoods). So this was the backroom compromise at a scant 10x+ cost of a regular cell tower.
Man. Fuck that town. Seriously.
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