What Use Are 'Public Artworks,' Really?

This article originally appeared on VICE UK. Scott King earned his stripes as art director on the magazines i-D (which is now part of the VICE family) and Sleazenation, and had a knack for producing whip-crack zines and artworks satirizing the pretensions of the press, the laddish nationalism of Britpop, and the bleak, Fosters-fueled monotony of UK suburban life. Hogarth via DTP, if you will.

King's latest graphic jaunt has taken him and his readers to Afghanistan, where, with illustrator Will Henry, he lampoons Britain's love of dumping massive public artworks in towns whose guts were ripped out by the successive governments. King's beef is with the use of public art to gloss over economic problems, citing examples like Antony Gormley's sculpture Angel of the North in Gateshead and Anish Kapoor's Temenos sculpture, 40 miles down the road on Middlesbrough docks.

The small picture book, called Antony and Anish Take Afghanistan, is somewhere between a Commando war comic (jingoistic thrillers in gray newsprint, all black-and-white pics of Fritz and Hans copping it—your elder brother might have been into them) and a Tom Tomorrow cartoon.

The plot goes something like this: In a last ditch effort to turn round the fortunes of a war-torn Afghanistan, Barack Obama commissions Anish Kapoor and Antony Gormley to build a series of enormous public artworks. It's a success: peace breaks out and, all of a sudden, Kabul has the best boutique hotels in the northern hemisphere. GDP growth accelerates off the charts. Organic cafés, independent coffee roasters, and vintage poster stalls spring up in the new "Creative Quarter" and the country's fixed wheel bicycle production helps power an economic transformation.

It's a funny, sharp little tale. We caught up with him to find out more.

VICE: Hi Scott, can you explain the concept behind the book?
Scott King: The book stems from an idea that I had to make "sculptural transplants" of public artworks by Antony Gormley and Anish Kapoor to Afghanistan. A fantasy idea in which I imagined myself as the head of a United Nations-commissioned "think-tank" that would donate existing public artworks from the UK to Afghanistan. The idea being that, if the work of these two sculptors can be used to "regenerate" poor areas like Gateshead, Middlesbrough, and Stratford, then surely it might help to re-generate a poverty-stricken, war-torn, and economically broken country like Afghanistan.

I had someone make me images of huge public sculptures "transplanted" into the vast planes of Helmand Province, but it didn't really work. It just looked too trite, easy and flippant. This led to me thinking more about the scenario of Anish and Antony being deployed by the UN to "save" Afghanistan, rather than the actual images of what they might do there.

I imagined what might go on behind the scenes and I thought that this could only really work as a sort of graphic novel or cartoon. I was very lucky to then work with an artist named Will Henry—he took my sketches and words and turned them into this very concise fantasy.

What made you interested in the work of Anish Kapoor and Antony Gormley?
I'm significantly less interested in their work than I am in the way that they, as artists, have been "deployed" in this country to create totemic artworks as tourist attractions, or as focal points for areas that the government has deemed to be in need of "regeneration."

There are other artists who have been involved in similar schemes, of course: Damien Hirst appeared to almost appoint himself as the savior of a small part of North Devon by erecting "Verity" on Ilfracombe harbor, then there's the still (or never) to be built White Horse at Ebbsfleet by Mark Wallinger.

So, what I'm really interested in is the role of public art and how or why it is commissioned, but Anish and Antony are the poster boys for British sculptural gigantism, which is why I chose them as the subject of the book.

What are your main criticisms of their work, in the context of public art projects like the Angel of the North and Temenos?
I'm not sure—though I may be wrong—that any of these areas that have been lucky enough to become permanent host to a gigantic Gormley or Kapoor genuinely benefit, though the artists that created them certainly do. The artists might convince themselves and others that the work they've created is for the public, but it's also a gigantic advertisement for their own careers. Antony Gormley talks about Angel of the North almost as if it is an ancient earthwork—like it has been and will be there forever.

These enormous public sculptures are indelibly tied to the artists' own "legacy." The industrialists of early to mid 20th century Manhattan were obsessed by being seen to be the "author" of the tallest and most expensive new skyscraper and if you read anything at all in the press about newly commissioned public artworks they are only ever reported in terms of scale and cost: There are easy parallels between these artists and the industrialists that covered Manhattan with skyscrapers. So, what I object to is the conceit that somehow these public artworks are a "gift to the people."

What's your criticism with the way public art has been deployed in the past 20 years?
To use "think-tank" language, I think that huge public artworks built in poor or post-industrial areas are a "band-aid solution." The various bodies who are responsible for the commissioning of these monuments see them as "beacons of positivity," I'm sure. They see them as a focal point or a hub around which new industries will be created, and to a degree, I'm sure they are.

But Middlesbrough, the site of Temenos, has one of the highest youth unemployment rates in the UK—so does Stockton-on-Tees. Stockton (along with Middlesbrough) was one of the five chosen towns for Kapoor's Tees Valley Giants project, a scheme, now possibly abandoned, that was intended to create "The World's Biggest Public Art Project." Why? Even if these sculptures do somehow radiate the hope, ambition, and positivity that their creators believe will attract "upstart" businesses to their immediate vicinity, how many jobs could they possibly create?

These big artworks have been deployed in areas that have suffered from having their industries decommissioned in the 1980s. What's the harm in making a depressed place a bit more jolly with some public art?
There is no harm in that. But as I said, I think these artworks are—if the above is true—deployed as short-sighted solutions. Tourist distractions, if you like.

What do you make of the idea that regeneration and new businesses spring up as a result of these new structures?
Well, maybe new businesses will spring up in and around these artworks. I really hope they do. Boutique coffee shops might yet save the day.

Check out the book here.

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