A German-based artist plans to complete and install six original works along the Water of Leith sculpture trail this summer. But it is a development which one Broughton critic is already branding an 'affront to the people of Edinburgh'.
O.G. Gonflé – the 42-year-old Swiss post-redactionist and self-styled 'ideo-pole' now resident in Hamburg – has promised to commit up to half his 2010 Prix Oxygène award (€750,000) to the project, on condition that Creative Scotland provide match-funding.
Entitled WL:A–F, it will be the latest in a series of high-profile 'réponses en plein air' to works by other international artists in public open spaces. Previous venues have included Mount Rushmore, Corcovado in Rio de Janeiro, and the three occupied plinths in London's Trafalgar Square.
Monsieur Gonflé proposes to site his new works adjacent to the Antony Gormley 6 Times Horizon figures positioned last June, including those in Bonnington and St Mark's Park. But he dismisses claims that they will detract from the originals, arguing they are respectful and complementary.
[img_assist|nid=1636|title=Julian Assange: friend and collector|desc=|link=node|align=right|width=144|height=200]Whilst Gonflé is reluctant to concede 'restrictive explications' for his creations, he has at least partially denied that the title of this latest project is a reference to his friend and collector Julian Assange's organisation Wikileaks.
'They are neither about nor not about Wikileaks,' he told London-based Art-journalists at yesterday's press briefing in Stockbridge. 'Rather, they are to be considered dynamic meditations which unavoidably began and took intellectual form in the context of Wikileaks among other things, including to an extent the Gormleys.'
Controversially, due to the exclusively conceptual nature of WL:A-F, Gonflé's promotional foundation STUDIO 14 will not be required to progress the project through City of Edinburgh's formal planning process. It is this which has particularly infuriated some local residents.
'This is an utter affront to the art community and people of Edinburgh,' Tweed Gallery's Douglas Qwive-Smith told Spurtle. 'Why should anyone be allowed to just roll up here and start plonking down work of questionable value without prior scrutiny or a by-your-leave?'
[img_assist|nid=1637|title=Gonflé's 'Heads Up' (1997–2003), Mt Rushmore (Borgium's profiles discernible in background)|desc=|link=node|align=right|width=200|height=125]Gonflé cannot see the problem. 'My works belong in the artistic mind not in notepads of critics and bureaucrats,' he berated Jonathon Og of the Independent on Thursday. 'The beauty is that if people do not like my envisionings, they can reconceptualise their own. In fact, I encourage them to do that.'
All this is of no comfort to Freya Buccleuch, Chair of the Friends of Dean Bridge. 'It may be all well and good making one's own envisionings in Switzerland, but I walk the dogs by the river every day and I should not like to see the envisionings of some of the people one meets hereabouts, particularly in the evenings. Surely, there must be boundaries?'
Spurtle has approached Broughton election candidates (Breaking news, 30.3.11) for their views, but all are prioritising more purely political questions just now. We hope to publish their considered responses after 5 May, shortly before the first of Gonflé's works is likely positioned in its new home.
In the meantime, we welcome readers' opinions as ever.
