Warwickshire County Council says it looks after the road, not the sculpture, and had “no involvement in the commissioning, delivery or installation.” Stratford District Council is “currently investigating” and “exploring the options,” which is council-speak for a long meeting and a short conclusion. They hope to recover the cost from the driver’s insurer. A former mayor has pointed out that a lot of people never wanted the thing in the first place. When it went up in 2009, paid for from a developer pot of about £100,000, a petition to take it down gathered 1,183 signatures. It stayed. It has now been improved by a Ford.
This is the British way with public art. First we argue about whether it is art. Then we argue about whether it is public. Then a Vauxhall settles the aesthetic debate and we argue about the invoice. Nobody is against spheres, exactly. Nobody is for a four-figure welding job that might turn out to belong to a department that was abolished in 2011 and reconstituted as a strategy.
I have some sympathy. A roundabout is a hostile environment for anything with feelings, including motorists. I have less sympathy for three organisations in a room, each holding a folder marked “not us.” If your Arts Strategy of 2005 can birth a sphere, it ought to be able to admit the sphere exists when it gets a dent.
If you are restoring your own household armillary sphere, Amazon will sell you metal epoxy. It will not decide which council writes the cheque. It will at least pretend to be a solution.
I do not expect Shakespeare’s town to unbend this quickly. I do expect the sphere to remain a conversation piece, which is what public art is for, just not usually because a bumper got there first. Remember that the next time a press officer says they are exploring options. It means the sculpture is still crooked, and so is the organogram.
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