Hooked On A Phelan

at

This morning.

Dame Street, Dublin 2.

Artist Alan Phelen at the official unveiling of the first sculpture commissioned and created as part of the Dublin City Council Sculpture Dublin initiative. Mr Phelan won a €50,000 commission for his piece called ‘RGB Sconce, Hold Your Nose’, now placed on the Daniel O’Connell Plinth outside City Hall to already some chagrin.

We’ll learn to love it.

Or will we?

*squints eyes*

Saturday: Replacing The Liberator

Sam Boal/RollingNews

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23 thoughts on “Hooked On A Phelan”

  1. Nigel

    To be honest, its worst offence as a piece of visual art is it highlights how utterly dull and drab the rest of that frontage is. Put it on a more colourful street it would be lovely.

  2. Janet, dreams of an alternate universe

    it looks like a bad acid trip ( I have both a degree in art and in misbehaving so feel qualified to comment )

      2. Janet, dreams of an alternate universe

        the little shadow man watching me in the corner has his finger to his lips sssshhhhsss says he you’ve said too much …and he’s gone

    1. Cú Chulainn

      I passed it yesterday. Not only does it not fit the plinth, but the material that connects it with the plinth is some sort of galvanised aluminium, which doesn’t fit, is poorly constructed, and is supported by a metal bar that stands apart and at the back of the plinth. It’s absolutely shocking. Cack handed amateur hour. Whatever about the merits of the sculpture itself, and I don’t see many if any at all, to be essentially stuck on, badly, is unacceptable. No self respecting artist would be happy to have his work displayed like that.

  7. goldenbrown

    FIFTY GRAND?

    FIFTY FUPPING GRAND?!?!?

    for that yoke

    base of which is very poorly matched to and fitted onto that plinth by the looks of it, disaster-bodge

    jasus I am 100% in the wrong business

    1. Oro

      The 50k includes fabrication costs / installation / expenses / contingency / consultants / materials / insurances (if required) etc etc so not much left over as actual artists’ fee. Typically 10%-15%. And was an open competition, for which a lot of people enter and earn nothing for their hard work.

      1. goldenbrown

        LOLOL I could do better with some abandoned bicycle frames, for the craic no payment required

        I cannot believe what I’m seeing

        and that plinth attachment? is that meant to be part of the art as well? it’s catastrophic. it’s like…uh-oh there’s no real easy way to fit this oversized monster to the plinth, oh I know I’ll weld up some 40×40 box strapping and there’s some fixers outa that German pipe fittings catalogue we could use….

        it’s like we want our own Palencia for the tourists to laugh at on Instashite

        NONSENSE

        1. Oro

          My point was that for public art works, there’s a very strict process that controls procurement, fabrication and realization of the sculpture so that it’s a bit redundant to say you could do better with bicycle frames. There are many costs and processes associated with public projects that do not occur in private projects, 50k really isn’t much for a piece of public art at all when you break down the numbers.

          FWIW I do agree the plinth is a mess btw.

          1. Cú Chulainn

            FWIW, I don’t think 50k can cover the cost of a piece like this. Maybe that’s why the plinth is, just bad. But I suspect laziness is the culprit. A great big splash of colour at City Hall would be a fantastic addition. I don’t think this is it.

          2. Oro

            Yeah they should have gone bigger with the budget considering the significant location.

            I don’t like it or hate it but to me it’s a missed opportunity. Saying that, Dublin’s public art always seemed a bit haphazard and inconsistent though so I suppose it makes sense in that regard!

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