Citizen Sculptor

by Patrick O’Hare

AS of last December, the northern French city of Lille boasts a striking and unorthodox new monument to its industrial and radical past: a demoiselle, painted in vivid red, caught mid-dance, a satchel over her shoulder, the world’s continents imprinted on the sole of her shoe. Its creator: none other than Glasgow-based sculptor Kenny Hunter. He told me about this work and others at his Anniesland studio, where he is working on a new collection of sculptures inspired by urban animals to be exhibited at the Tramway in July.
The resting place for Hunter’s Lille statue is Place Pierre Deygeter, in the old industrial centre of Fives, which formerly hosted huge engineering workshops employing thousands of people. Pierre Deygeter himself is famous for setting the Internationale, written by fellow Frenchman Eugene Edine Pottier, to music and the song subsequently became the communist anthem.
Lille also elected France’s first socialist mayor, during a time when it was both an industrial hub and a hotbed of political activism and trade union militancy. More recently, Lille has become a tourist centre thanks to the Eurostar, which makes it an important crossroads on the line from Paris to London.
How then did an industrial past come to be embodied in the figure of a young girl? “Well the French were keen on commissioning a joyful image,” Hunter explained. “If the work should evoke something of the past, it should especially carry a feeling of optimism, related to the future of Fives.”
“The bold red has obvious political connotations but also brings to mind industrial red paint,” he noted. The map signifies, as well as the Internationale, the fact that Lille’s industrial engineering output impacted across the world. The outline of a train inside the girl’s satchel is a subtle reference to the role-played by the locomotive in reviving Lille’s fortunes, having lost its textile and mining industries.
The work itself is made of bronze, and is supported by a large plinth, perhaps as Lille’s industrial working past helps to support and mould its future. This composition was inspired by the work of the Soviet artist El Lissitzky an in particular his 1919 print Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge; indeed Hunter expressed an admiration for early artwork of the Soviet Union, before a burst of creativity was stifled by the weight of Stalinism and socialist realism.
But as a Scot charged with interpreting the radical past of a foreign town, how did Hunter navigate the dangers of misinterpretation? And with dealing with culture on the other side of the channel, given how seriously the French take the area? A finely tuned sensitivity to local sentiments was certainly necessary but Hunter also notes that, ultimately, the artist must follow their instinct and maintain their vision and their integrity.
Thankfully, and despite an often-complex relationship with Lille’s mayor, the final sculpture was well received. “It certainly won approval from the baker and cafe owner from the square,” Hunter noted, “which is important since it is them who will have to look at it every day!”
On afterthought, perhaps the Lille commission was not altogether new ground for Hunter. The city’s current situation overlaps with Glasgow’s - a former ‘workshop of the world’, with a strong working class and socialist background, forced to face up to a post­industrial reality, the growth of the service sector, tourism and at the same time, gentrification and the breaking up of communities.
As for the radicalism, it is interesting to note that Hunter also sculpted a bust, in a similar anti-establishment red, of Jimmy Reid, the Glasgow trade unionist and writer, who led the infamous UCS work-in, aimed at keeping Glasgow’s shipyards open. And that’s before we mention Man Walks Among Us, his larger than life statue of Jesus Christ (wasn’t he the original revolutionary?), which has graced the Museum of religious art and more recently GOMA.
Despite these high profile works, perhaps those Voice readers whose idea of a cultural evening means switching over to BBC2 (...Ok, that really means me), would be more familiar with Hunter’s Citizen Firefighter, the monument to celebrate Glasgow’s fire service which holds pride of place outside Central Station.
I’m probably not the only one who has admired the almost cartoon-like style which is particular to Hunter’s work but the lack of detail is far from accidental: it has neither gender nor race and is even masked, leaving the figure at the same time universal and open to interpretation.
Hunter noted that having the figure without a plinth, at head-height and essentially unprotected is effectively an act of trust in the public. So be warned Voice readers and remember to clean the grease from your chips and cheese off your hands before you go fingering this particular city centre feature.
Those culture vultures out there would do well to look out for Hunter’s next big exhibition, A Shout in the Street which will be exhibited in the Tramway, Glasgow, in July. I better not give much away but a preliminary stroll around the artist’s studio, a veritable concrete (or should that be clay?) jungle of pigeons, feral cats, foxes, pizza boxes and cardboard boxes suggests that this meditation on the complex relationship we have with the only animals that can thrive in our midst (by living off our refuge) is well worth checking out.
It will certainly have a strong environmental component, leading us to question the colossal waste which characterizes capitalist society and which Hunter describes as being “increasingly seen as one of our biggest vices” (note to Glasgow city council-fortnightly bin collections ain’t the answer).
Alongside the sculptures, Hunter will also be exhibiting several political prints, featuring quotes from the likes of Marx, Voltaire and Yeats, often combined to form a single phrase and placed against a coloured background. Things fall apart (Yeats), for example, explores the theme of the apocalyptic obsession which seems to be recurrent in our history, while Everlasting Agitation, taken from The Communist Manifesto, relates to Marx’s idea that, as Hunter puts it, “nothing is unchanging except change itself”.
The sculptor believes the grand old book of communism to be “full of poetic language” and he picked out another gem of a quote: “all that it solid melts into air”, which is also the title of a book, on modernization and modernism, by Marxist philosopher Marshall Berman which inspired many of Hunter’s prints.
What advice would the politically-engaged sculptor proffer on how the SSP should handle culture should we ever get into power (no harm in dreaming surely)?
We would make a good start by adopting a more committed attitude to cultural expenditure, moving away from our puritanical, Calvinist roots and learning a bit from our Gallic neighbours, whom Hunter characterizes as having a much more “indulgent” attitude to culture.
A prominent statue commemorating Red Clydeside anyone?

The Wild Brunch
Keef Tomkinson

Keef casts his eye across life’s more leisurely pursuits in order to put a wee bit of CULTure into our lives.

PENSIONS. Controversial subject. Just last week the striking Grangemouth workers brought the issue home to the whole nation and forced the question, ‘What’s the story with jerry cans?’You know,who gave them that name? Aguy called Jerry?
I do not have a pension except for the state one I pay in to with each paycheque. I do not consider my earnings enough to have the luxury of pension. Rent, food and living are a greater priority for me and many others my age. It’s a shame as these workers are at the vanguard of keeping the idea of real pensions alive.
I have a plan B, just in case, for the time I choose to retire, and no doubt the Gordon Browns of the future will make sure that is a long way into my 80s. It is a simple plan but researched using nothing but the Murdoch Press.
On the day before my retirement I will commit a serious, maybe even a heinous crime. Nothing sexual or against kids but something that will put me behind bars and into a life of free meals, heating, self improvement courses and a plasma TV in my bedroom. The Sun says so anyway.
Maybe if my current work offered a more appealing package I would change my criminal ways before they begin, but it’s unlikely the penny pinchers of ***** will do that. But they are not unusual. Any decent pension scheme is being closed down.
Except, that is, for one organisation. One organisation that offers a fully funded final salary scheme to all workers with an incentive-driven increase included. In fact, Al Qaeda’s pension scheme for suicide bombers is the most competitive on the market.
Its one hundred percent update and almost zero percent payouts make it a win-win for employee and employer alike. But it’s not just the high flyers in the suicide department who get the benefits, I hear all employees get a very competitive package on being hired.
Even the lowly clerical assistants, human resource administrators and financial clerks get a starting package of private medical care (dentist and optician included), travel expenses for instances of fleeing, childcare places at local madrassas, a mobile phone (detonator optional) and corporate diary (containing the obligatory map of the London Underground). Only suicide bombers get a company car or truck.
Reports have it that although the majority of the funding for this comes from Oscar The Bin Laden, additional funds come from both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Surely this is a workers package to be envious of and one that may be aspirational.
However, both the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times report that the credit crunch is hitting Al Qaeda. Cash flow is at an all time low given many loss-making ventures across the globe as well as the war with the Great Satan. The share price is at its lowest point since 12 September 2001.
Given these pressures, Al Qaeda is considering floating itself on the stock exchange for an injection of cash. In order to attract the right investment, gun belts are being tightened and much of the workers’ package is being trimmed down. How? Well a number of western companies are considering tendering bids for the rights to the contract to run Al Qaeda’s administrative apparatus.
Dick Cheney’s Halliburton are in the running but numerous British outsourcing agents like Capita are also looking to see how they can offer Al Qaeda a smoother and more efficient organisation. Of course all of this means one thing. While Oscar The Bin Laden will remain a wealthy man, the cutbacks will be aimed at those people who make Al Qaeda tick. A squeeze of wages, pension provisions and of course redundancies will be the order of the day.
The SSP will be there on the picket lines making sure our copy of the Al Qaeda’s Voice is distributed. Victory to the working men and...other men of Al Qaeda Plc.