Wherefore art thou?

Though we only learnt about it after our return from five weeks away, at Easter, Cheltenham's Banksy hit the local headlines. Now, near to Christmas, the covered-up art work seems to have become just a blot on the landscape. I biked past this sunny morning when delivering Christmas cards.

Bronze cosmetic

This statue has been "lying" in Sandford Park, here in Cheltenham, for six years, but I hadn't looked at it before today. "The Weathered Man", by local sculptor, James Gould was commissioned by the Environment Agency as the cherry on its £21 million flood relief "cake". The project involved reshaping the surface of the park, through which runs the River Chelt, in order to accommodate a supposed once-in-100 years flood risk. (The odds may have shortened a bit since it was first planned.)

I have nothing against public art as such, but please can it be better done (than this)? From any angle, "The Weathered Man" looks a poor specimen. I'd rather the long log you can see under the trees in the left of my photograph was the basis for any commemoration thought necessary, than this lumpy creation - far from capable of redeeming the ugliness of its location, especially with litter blown up against the railings.

Art, public and commercial

In today's Guardian, Simon Hoggart tells us all about his Baltic cruise, and seeing Copenhagen's famous harbour statue: "This was paid for," he writes, "by Denmark's best-known brewer, and if it were in Britain it would be known as the Carlsberg Little Mermaid." Indeed. The evidence is there for all to witness in Cheltenham, with the placement this week of ten fibreglass horses in public places throughout the town centre. The one in my photograph, decorated by local equestrian artist Sally Lancaster, is less commercially-adorned than some. The sponsor's name is nevertheless prominent on the plinth, only hidden by the lady pushing her shopping along.

Why does promotion of art have to go so inexorably hand in hand with promotion of its patrons? It's the same story with our recent Holst statue. But not in the past. Even as recently as 1997, when Sophie Ryder's Minotaur and the Hare was purchased for its Promenade site, the donors' contributions were only quite unostentatiously acknowledged.