Lewis Capaldi's 'bad' statue? I love it and here's why

I’ll tell you where you can see Robert Burns, Queen Victoria, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, John Knox (boo!) and William Wallace (hurrah!).

And I’ll tell you why there’s a dog at the top of Candlemaker Row, who that is sitting high and mighty a few hundred metres away outside the High Court – and how and why he came to have a spectacularly shiny right toe.

The more statuary the better, I say – more arcane facts for me to wax nerdy about.

Given that, I am delighted that the inestimable figure of Lewis Capaldi has been commemorated by means other than a tour t-shirt – and I don’t hold with those who say the statue of him recently unveiled at Glasgow venue SWG3 is anything other than a work of art.

It was created by pupils from the chart-topping singer’s former school, St Kentigern’s Academy in West Lothian, and they were there alongside him for the unveiling last week.

“So today our Top Secret project was unveiled at SWG3 with a young musician and ex-pupil who has done quite well,” tweeted the school via its art department account (yup, it has one). “The amazing S4 students and Art staff created a deliberately odd sculpture of Lewis as requested by his team. He loved it and laughed along!”

The school’s art teacher, Bryan Johnstone, has described the work as “intentionally bad, bizarre and odd-looking”. Personally I think he’s covering his back in case it gets Ronaldo’d (more on that term in a minute). I think Capaldi was closer to the truth when he referred to it as “the most beautiful and bizarre gift ever.”

It perfectly captures the spirit of the guy. The only shame is that it is made from papier mâché so there’s little chance of it being erected outdoors in Blackburn, the West Lothian community St Kentigern’s Academy serves (also the stomping ground of Grammy-nominated singer Susan Boyle, funnily enough). The weather would turn it to mush in hours, though I imagine someone might take a lighter to it first (I can say that: I have roots in West Lothian).

Still, it was a double thumbs up from Lewis, and a triple thumbs up from me (the extra digit coming from artist prankster David Shrigley, who mounted a massive single thumbs up sculpture on Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth in 2016).

The much-ridiculed bust of Cristiano Ronaldo in Madeira (Image: PA)

What is bad art anyway? One definition points calls it art in which there is a “dissonance” between “intention and outcome”. That’s not true of the Capaldi statue. Besides, the definition can also describe what’s known as Outsider Art, and curators fight tooth and nail to defend those sorts of artists, and to show their work.

Elsewhere you’ll find those who hedge their bets and say there is bad art by famous artists, but also bad art by non-famous artists which is good art. I like the thoughts of Anna Choutova best, a London-based painter and curator with links to the Slade School of Fine Art. She says: “I think that the worst art is art that has the least capacity to be disliked by the viewer.”  

My attitude to it has always been like those gardeners who say there’s no such thing as a weed, just a plant in the wrong place.

Leaf through that sub-section of art history labelled ‘Ill-Starr’d Sculptural Renderings Of Iconic Figures From Pop Culture’ and you will find plenty of stuff that is intensely disliked by the viewer. By Ms Choutova’s definition, then, it can’t be that bad.

Let’s shift focus. Let’s pan away from sunny, exotic West Lothian and turn our attention to the dreary surrounds of rain-lashed Madeira, whose three major claims to fame are a type of fortified wine, an airport runway which stretches alarmingly into the briny blue sea, and a certain footballer by the name of Cristiano Ronaldo.

He was born in the island’s capital, Funchal, and plied his trade at Manchester United and then Real Madrid. For close to two decades he wowed the world with some of the most sublime sporting performances it is ever likely to see – but oh dear, the state of that bust of him unveiled at Funchal Airport in 2017, on the occasion it was renamed Aeroporto Cristiano Ronaldo.

The sculptor was local boy Emanuel Santos, who used to work at the airport and who offered his, er, services unbidden. He knocked it together in three weeks and it was unveiled by the Portuguese president. The response wasn’t good. As one wag noted witheringly: “The eyes of great paintings follow you around a room, but his can’t seem to focus.”

That’s what I mean by being Ronaldo’d.

Even worse for Messrs Ronaldo and Santos, it was suggested by the some that the bronze bust looked more like former Arsenal and Republic of Ireland strike Niall Quinn. Or racing driver David Coulthard. Or former Liverpool and Norway hardman John Arne Riise. Anyone but Mr Ronaldo. Unless proven otherwise by this time next week, I’m going to assume one of that trio now has it on their mantlepiece because it disappeared fairly promptly from outside the airport, supposedly at the request of Museu CR7. That’s the museum dedicated to all things Ronaldo-esque, and which opened in 2013.

“This is a matter of taste, so it is not as simple as it seems,” Mr Santos said in his defence when the sound of mocking laughter reached his ears. “What matters is the impact that this work generated. There is always the possibility of making a difference, I was prepared for all this. I used as a base some photos of Cristiano Ronaldo that I found on the internet, nothing specific. I put the photos next to me and started working on the bust.”

In fact, he did have another stab at it, and this time produced something which more closely resembled the footballer. When it was unveiled, he also opened up about the effect the mockery had had on him. I’d like to think a thousand meme creators hung their heads in shame after reading of his upset, but I’m not so naïve to think they give a CR7 about the poor guy.

Actually, that was the second time Mr Ronaldo had been Ronaldo’d. The first came three years earlier when a full-size statue of him was unveiled outside the museum itself. It shows him in the familiar posture he always adopted prior to taking a free kick – only with very prominent genitals. “There’s something slightly stiff about it,” ran the headline on an online news article by pay TV sports channel Eurosport.

Boom boom.

Still with football – sort of, anyway – there was for a few years a seven-foot statue of Michael Jackson on a plinth outside the London ground of Fulham FC. It was removed in 2013 following the club’s sale by owner Mohamed Al Fayed, though obviously that wasn’t the only reason. Was it bad? Many thought so.

The statue of Michael Jackson which stood outside Fulham FC's Craven Cottage ground (Image: PA)

Other musicians who have been commemorated in statues include The Beatles, Bob Marley and The Bee Gees. Those works were all made by sculptor Andrew Edwards. You’ll find the first two in Liverpool and the third in Douglas, Isle of Man. There’s another Bee Gees statue in Australia (it shows them as young men), and if you wander around Camden Market in London you may spot a statue of Amy Winehouse (recognisable more from the beehive hairdo than the facial features).

Those statues are all OK, but not one of them is exactly inspiring. They’re just, sort of, blameless. Better be bad than bland, I say, because bad can be good but bland is always just boring.

Papier mâché thumbs up to that, right?

READ MORE: LEWIS CAPALDI - DON'T LOOK TO CELEBRITIES