Category Archives: Sculpture & installations

Memorial to the Confederate Soldier, New Orleans

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This war memorial of white marble I found in Greenwood Cemetery, New Orleans, in the Summer of 2008. I do not know who the sculptor was. The city’s cemeteries are world renowned and some are truly vast, cities of the dead, endless rows of tombs in streets with names and one-way systems. This visit was the culmination of years of interest in this strange city, so, when I found myself in this atmospheric place, amongst its dead, squinting against the glare of the blistering Louisiana Sun reflected from the white tombs, I was in an emotional state and ready for some Beautiful Stuff. It was then that I saw him, this Confederate Infantryman leaning on his rifle. Inscribed below was:

IN COMMEMORATION OF THE HEROIC VIRTUES OF THE CONFEDERATE SOLDIER THIS MONUMENT IS ERECTED BY THE LADIES BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION OF LOUISIANA 1874

Soldier 1

I found the realism of the style, the soldier’s pose and the composition of the work faultless. The skill involved, for me, is beyond admiration. For these reasons alone it is beautiful. But there was also a haunting beauty in the emotions that lead to its creation. This was a symbol of grief for the loss of the men these ladies loved so dearly, a symbol of acknowledgment of sacrifice and courage after what had been the most terrible war that Man had experienced to date. It speaks still of love and admiration for those who died for a lost and noble cause, a beautiful way of life and culture. I knew that culture relied upon the enslavement of the Black Race as the base for its economy but that does not detract from the pureness of the emotions that lead to the memorial’s creation.

It spoke to me also of the foulness of war, the corruption and stupidity of politicians, how patriotism, masquerading as a fine principle, can be so dangerous, how religion can create the ridiculous paradox of God supporting both sides, how the use of ceremony creates the heirarchies necessary to have men go to their death without questioning the order, the paradox of admiration for your enemy whilst you kill him, the hypocrisy of sending yours to kill theirs and then complaining when theirs shoot back and finally the overwhelming sadness I feel as I acknowledge the fact that war is as Human as is peace and that we can never be rid of it.

Bruce Bay cairns, New Zealand

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In Maori mythology, southern right whales (tohorara) have god-like status. Hoping to glimpse these increasingly rare beasts, tourists driving the west coast of New Zealand’s South Island stop at Bruce Bay. Weather permitting, people from every continent get out of their rented vehicles and stare out to sea. They have time on their hands. There is no café; only the road, the ocean and the rocks in between.

Bruce Bay 1

Something in this wild, beautiful place impels the visitors to leave hundreds of carefully balanced cairns. Some are simple; some show ingenious engineering skills; some are beautiful. All have a primitive appeal. Are they just marks of passing for the next tourist or is there at play some great whale-spirit?

Bruce Bay 2

Bruce Bay 3

Bruce Bay 4

Bruce Bay 5

I left my own cairn at Bruce Bay but I felt like an intruder. Reassuringly, it will have been washed away, like the others, in one of the great storms that lash this rugged coastline.

There is a Maori cemetery at the end of the beach.

Smaban Abbas’s Cairo airport sculpture

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I arrive home from Cairo. Exhausted.  Half an hour with my laptop reveals nothing about Smaban Abbas. I’d like to meet him or her. He has nailed Cairo with one simple sculpture. I don’t even know when the work was done. It must be recent though. Perhaps he’ll see this post and contact me.

Smaban Abbas's Cairo airport sculpture

Cairo is the craziest city I’ve visited. To get to the new airport on time one needs a good three hours. The traffic is autogeddon-gridlock-grind. The taxi driver is constantly weaving, dodging, hooting and appealing to his God. The heat, noise and fumes are together overpowering. As we slowly leave the city proper, the traffic thins enough to get into a hopeful third gear. Tens of kilometres of unfinished luxury apartment blocks line the main road. These jutting rectangular monstrosities, like a jungle of teeth needing urgent dental work, stretch to the horizon. The only other things on the ground are red / brown rocks: just like the two rocks of Abbas’s statue.

The total environmental, social, political and financial madness of the city is summed up by this sculpture. You glimpse it as you drive into “Departures.” I walk away from the main building to have a closer look. How did he or she do it? Is it real? Should I caress the rope? Can it be rope? Have I got the courage to tap on the rocks to see if they are indeed rocks or maybe fibreglass? Dare I risk the disappointment? A policeman is approaching. I step back, smile and leave with my trip to Cairo complete; the statue a kind of teasing “au revoir.”