What Is A Statue?

Black Lives Matter protests and Edward Colston’s immersion in Bristol Harbour (2020), have been agents of real change in perception, to the point where it is possible to raise a very general set of questions about the value of public statuary.
Statues frequently combine image and text, and I am interested in how a sculptural object and text can work concretely together, to be something like a 3D analogue of concrete poetry.

The three Tributes make concrete use of salient text in a way that contributes to the object-quality of the whole work, as an honest celebration of the subject.
The Maquettes for Anti-Statues are more bittersweet. The theme of each is ironic, and serves to undo pretensions to veneration. In their scale and character as maquettes, they question whether they should be larger. Lines of quoted poetry speak for themselves and find a new resonance in their sculptural embodiment.