Quelle horreur???

We popped over to Ilfracombe today to make up our own minds about Hirst's Verity statue.

We parked in the carpark, paid for a parking ticket, went for fish and chips and then walked through the town in the glorious sunshine, feeling as if it was the middle of the school summer holidays. The town was buzzing with life and plenty of these people were heading for the harbour to look at the new statue.
After walking around the harbour looking at and photographing Verity we bought some fudge and wandered back to the car.

Whatever the other locals think of their new, enormous neighbour (and I'm sure the negative comments have been in the minority), Ilfracombe is £30 better off today just because of only our family's visit.

I struggle to find anything obscene, horrific or vulgar about the statue. If I was pushed to come up with something negative about it I would have to say the sword (which isn't in this photo because I had the wrong lens). Swords represent violence. But bodies, breasts, pregnancy... ? No. They're just who we are, what we are, what we do. The internal workings of a human body are fascinating and the pregnant body is simply beautiful.

This rather angry article here in the Observer by Catherine Bennett calls the sculpture "arrestingly hideous", "a gigantic insult to the landscape", and "alien to anything identifiably Ilfracombe" . Do public sculptures always have to be obviously identifiable to the area in which they are placed? I don't know...

Bennett also calls the town "ambitious" - she talks of Ilfracombe becoming Hirst's town and property prices rising, and new people buying into the area. We'll see...

I find it interesting. And she really doesn't look massive with the ocean, high cliffs and hilly town around her.

Other photos from today's visit are here: Verity/ Ilfracombe