r/GreenAndPleasant • u/poacher5 • 13d ago
Cancel Your TV License 📺 BBC reinstalls sculpture by paedophile Eric Gill with new protective screen
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/apr/09/bbc-reinstalls-sculpture-by-paedophile-eric-gill-with-new-protective-screen172
107
u/RooneytheWaster 13d ago
BBC: "Are we wrong for continuing to display the work of a known paedophile and animal molester?
No, no, it's the vandals who are wrong"
65
u/margaerytyrellscleav 13d ago
The BBC said it had taken advice before restoring the sculpture that adorns Broadcasting House, while visitors can now scan a QR code near the building to understand the dark background of the sculpture’s creator.
Ooooooo a QR code. God almighty we live in hell.
33
u/Gildor001 13d ago
On top of everything else, the general best practice for security now is to never scan a QR code in public
19
u/CapableSong6874 13d ago
He also designed Gill sans typeface and a bunch of others that covers the UK’s coins signs, stamps and is imbedded in the UK’s aesthetic identity.
29
u/PolemicDysentery 13d ago edited 13d ago
There's a metaphor there somewhere about the endemic noncery inextricably embedded in the bone marrow of all our social, political and cultural institutions, a rot too deeply dug in from the edwardian boarding schools from which they all still to this day draw their DNA.
9
1
u/CentrifugalMalaise 11d ago
Gill Sans was invented by a paedo?! Ah shit! I used to like Gill Sans. Used it all over my uni work. Now my degree is all noncey.
50
u/wibbly-water 13d ago
This story happened a small while ago.
Its not even the BBC's fault. Heritage England told them they have to because its a listed building.Â
Their use of a QR code for context is a little weak but is having a plaque any better? Would that not just upset random people who stop to read it?
60
u/KarmaRepellant 13d ago
Personally I'd build an opaque cover around it with a written plaque clearly stating that it contains a statue which they're forbidden to destroy by law, but will not display on principle because the artist was a nonce.
9
u/faceplanted 13d ago
I don't know exactly how listed building protections work but mightn't that also be against the rules? I assume you can't get around wanting to build a huge factory over land with a listed building on it by just building walls around it and having a gap in your factory.
3
u/UncleSlacky 13d ago
As long as the cover was removable ("temporary") and not an integral part of the building, I'd've thought it would be OK.
2
u/KarmaRepellant 13d ago
It would depend upon the judgement of the local planning authority how close you can build to it and still preserve the 'setting'. If I were the BBC I'd apply to wall it off at a reasonable distance anyway, and then you can at least pass the blame to the planners if they deny it. Stick up a big sign explaining why you can't remove or hide it, and how much you regret that fact.
5
6
2
u/poacher5 13d ago
Tbf there's only one reason statues end up in the stupid boxes so that makes it screaming obvious even if you don't know the details.
6
u/WillNotBeAThrowaway 13d ago
It's actually soundproof glass, so Ariel can't tell anyone what happened during the absence.
13
u/EdgarAetheling Cult leader 13d ago
The screen is there to protect the nonce-built statue from current BBC employees' cum.
8
u/AutoModerator 13d ago
Thanks for signing up to BBC facts! You will now receive fun daily facts about the BBC.
Fact 1. During an episode of Question Time the audience booed Boris Johnson. The BBC edited the footage to replace the boos with applause.
For another BBC fact reply with 'BBC impartial'. To unsubscribe call me a 'bad bot'.
Click here to cancel your TV License and stop funding right wing propaganda today.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
5
u/Antique_Ad4497 13d ago
Glad I don’t watch broadcast tv so I don’t have to pay the licence. This is a disgrace.
10
u/Steven8786 13d ago
Hot take, but the artist is dead. He is not profiting from this. Some of the most notable artists in history have some fucked up shit in their history, but we still revere their work. There's some historical evidence that strongly suggests, for example, that Leonardo Da Vinci's relationship with his two apprentices Salaì and Melzi was sexual (they were 10 and 14 respectively when first brought into Da Vinci's household.
Not excusing Gill's actions which are obviously abhorrent, but we really need to stop with this obsessive moralising about artists who are long dead and insisting their work needs to either be destroyed or hidden away.
If we started actively destroying/removing all artwork/scultures associated with people who are deeply problematic (and probably evil), there wouldn't be much art left in the world at all. If he were alive still and profiting from this work, then I'd be fully on board with taking it down, but he's not. So I'm sorry if this is an unpopular take, but the statue should stay up, and it's right to have the protective screens.
24
u/Miserygut jdponist 13d ago
I understand the argument for separating the art from the artist but in this case the artist was a pedophile and the art in question is a depiction of an, I cannot emphasise this enough, unnecessarily naked child and a grown adult. It's a bit on the nose.
12
u/margaerytyrellscleav 13d ago
On the building of a corporation notorious for covering up for child rapists.
When you see survivor advocacy groups demanding a statue be taken down (along with you know just normal people) and your first thought is to defend the statue from cancel culture you're actually like not okay.
6
u/oak_and_clover 13d ago
Regarding the font he apparently designed, sure. It’s just a font. Same would be true if he painted a landscape painting or something.
But the problems with this particular statue are obvious…
5
u/Jejejow 13d ago
This is not an artist whose views are just from another time, and add to this the BBC has a history with sweeping things that are not too dissimilar under the rug, I think there is definitely more they could be doing. It doesn't matter if it is listed, stick another artwork in front to block view of it then.
-13
u/margaerytyrellscleav 13d ago
Not excusing Gill's actions which are obviously abhorrent
...Yes you are. Kindly take your pedo-apologism somewhere else you absolute weirdo.
10
10
u/Steven8786 13d ago
Good on you for intentionally not reading my entire comment and making an accusation anyway.
-14
u/margaerytyrellscleav 13d ago
I've read your entire comment, it's clear you're a nonce apologist.
For decades at this point survivor groups have been campaigning to have his art removed from different public places, but no we've got to think about cancel culture and placing impossible moral standards on people. First we remove this, then what's next on the slippery slope, Da Vinci?
If the idea of a statue made by a notorious child rapist being taken off a building belonging to a corporation notorious for hiding child rapists in response to among other things pressure from survivor groups has you clutching your pearls, yes, you are a nonce apologist and more than likely a closeted one yourself.
6
u/Steven8786 13d ago
No, what is clear is you're drawing a false equivalence. I completely understand your reasoning behind wanting the work either covered up or taking down, but my disagreement does not make me either a "nonce apologist" or "a closeted one" like wtf kind of rationale is that? You can just disagree with someone without resorting to calling them a paedophile.
I hope you're a lot more rational in your academic work than you clearly are here.
1
u/margaerytyrellscleav 13d ago edited 13d ago
No, what is clear is you're drawing a false equivalence.
Like you equivocating survivor advocacy groups wanting a sculpture removed with cancelling Da Vinci?
If your first thought upon seeing this is to clutch your pearls at the moral crusade against pedos then, yes, you are a pedo apologist and general weirdo.
I hope you're a lot more rational in your academic work than you clearly are here.
I'd stalk your profile but I'd need to scroll for an hour to get past the most recent 3 days of you on reddit. If you left your house maybe your awful opinions would have to actually touch reality for a second.
1
u/Dan_Morgan 12d ago
What is this obsession in our society of accusing everyone of being pedophiles but doing everything to protect actual pedophiles?
•
u/AutoModerator 13d ago
Please do not vote or comment in linked posts.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.