Photo via: Morgan Quaintance
David Lammy, Labour MP and London mayoral candidate
Photo: Nigel Howard via The Evening Standard
David Lammy, a Labour MP and mayoral candidate, has made a bewildering campaign promise: if he is elected Mayor of London, he will fill the city with celebrity statues of inspirational figures such as Adele, David Bowie, and David Beckham, the Evening Standard reports.
In a speech given yesterday at Goldsmiths, one of London’s most reputed art schools, Lammy made a passionate case for celebrating figures from contemporary pop culture: “For example, Adele is an inspiration to people in my constituency of how, with hard work and determination, they can succeed in the arts.”
To support his proposal, Lammy mentioned the campaign to erect a statue of the rapper Wiley that fans of the east London musician kick-started in 2013, galvanizing the support of 2,000 people.
“The time has come to recognize that there are living heroes,” Lammy said.
Lammy’s proposal brings to mind the craze to create monuments dedicated to pop-cultural icons that is spreading across the former Yugoslavia, which the Berlin-based artist Aleksandra Domanović so eloquently described in her video Turbo Sculpture (2010-2013).
Film still of Turbo Sculpture (2010-13), by Aleksandra Domanović
Photo via: Morgan Quaintance
The British capital had a brief taste of what it might be like to live amidst Lammy’s modern icon’s effigies in 2002, when a waxwork of David Beckham briefly graced the fourth plinth at Trafalgar Square. It got mixed reviews.
If Lammy wins the 2016 mayoral elections, will London be heading towards a “Turbo sculpture” future?