Madam, - I refer to the report in your issue of August 23rd on the proposal to erect a work by the sculptor Antony Gormley in the Dublin Docklands.
Your illustration suggests that this structure is to be actually stuck in the river Liffey, and that it is to be approximately 50 metres high - taller than the Custom House. Why is our beloved river Liffey being subjected to a relentless onslaught in an apparent attempt to clutter it up with as many "things" as possible?
We have a proliferation of new bridges. We have the boardwalk which serves to further clutter the river space and is ill-conceived and out of sympathy with the other architectural elements of the river such as the walls and bridges. I understand that the river is also threatened with some sort of overhead transport arrangement in the not too distant future - which would be needless and visually disastrous. And now the Gormley piece.
I find it impossible to discover who exactly makes decisions on such as the foregoing; and do these people have nothing more important to do for our city than try to destroy the magnificent Liffey? I believe that there are sensitive and intelligent people in Dublin City Council, but where are their voices now?
What I take to be quotations from Gormley regarding this work are the current mumbo-jumbo employed by many visual artists and mean absolutely nothing - nor should the public be intimidated by them. An art statement should not require a verbal statement to justify it.
This is not a rant against Gormley's work in general - I have some admiration for his Angel of the North. But why are we in Dublin being subjected to this monstrous and arbitrarily oversized depiction of the human figure, in which I can find no artistic merit despite the pathetic art-jargon accompanying its presentation to the public in your newspaper?
I hope the citizens of Dublin come out in their thousands to object to the granting of planning permission for this project.
- Yours, etc,
ALICE HANRATTY, Member of Aosdána, Henrietta Street, Dublin 1.