It’s New Year’s eve and I’m at home ill -what better way to cheer myself up than writing my 50th blog post?
S0 – here we go!
When I was studying to become a City of London guide one of our first assignments was to design our own walk.
I chose the theme of “Oppression and Resistance in the Square Mile”,and among my locations was a really bizarre looking sculpture in the side of the entrance to an unprepossessing office block at 108 Cannon Street.
It shows a heavily muscled man with an artfully positioned strip of cloth hiding his modesty, breaking through a stone wall via a Crucifix shaped hole with angels hovering above – possibly a reference to the falling of the Berlin wall and a return to banned Christianity for the workers?
The inscription underneath it states that it is called “Break the Wall of Distrust”, by the artist Zurab Tsereteli
Research showed me that he appears to be a Neo-Stalinist apologist for Putin whose works – often on enormous scale – are continuously mocked and rejected from their intended locations.
Putin is a massive fan of his.
Donald Trump is also a bigly fan, and one of his statues, rejected by 6 cities, is now in Puerto Rico and taller than the Statue of Liberty.
Trump’s fondness for him seems to be linked to deals with notoriously corrupt politicians dating back to the ’90s – see below.
https://trump-russia.com/2017/05/04/trump-and-the-sculptor-a-tale-of-corruption-organized-crime-and-murder/
There seems universal criticism of Tsereteli as a execrable artist.
“His sculptures are often blamed and mocked for being incongruously pompous and out of proportion”.
Here is the office it was at.
I made multiple notes about it and was very excited about having something to poke fun at a little and speculate about why it was there at all given its theme and the location in the middle of the City.
However a few weeks later I went back and – it was gone!
The building was being redeveloped and a kind security guard let me inside to look around, but there was no trace.
One of the property developers happened to be there to and she gave me her contact details – I emailed and was told that they were looking into it for me, but that was 3 years ago!
Here is the new building – no sign of the sculpture of course – and why not. who would want this ugly thing? It was just on the left at the top of the steps.
I suddenly remembered this last week and contacted them again – let’s see if it is lost in storage like Indiana Jones’ Ark.
Update – they have got back to me.
It is saved – I can’t wait to see it in its new location – maybe Donald Trump can unveil it!
We’ve been advised that the statue is currently in storage and is due to be relocated in a building in King William Street, that building is currently under construction.
As soon as i receive any further updates I’ll be sure to let you know.
