The return of the What’s That Thing? Award for bad public art

Wouldn’t it be nice, in these divided times, for humanity to have a common enemy – preferably an inanimate one. Welcome to the What’s That Thing? Award. We’re in our second year, hunting down the most execrable new pieces of public art that have appeared in the past year in this country and this time we’ve teamed up with the Architecture Foundation.

The prize grew out of a report I wrote six years ago when we were at peak public-art-as-urban-panacea and every council was desperately clambering over itself to add a bit of swanky tat to their portfolio of local amenities. (I remember going to a public art ‘consultation exercise’ in John O’Groats where two artists delivered a powerpoint presentation to the slightly baffled locals trying to convince them that a sculpture would revive the town’s fortunes. It didn’t.)

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Why is so much art commissioned for public spaces so poor, so hated by so many, so likely to fail even on its own terms, and what to do about it – that, broadly, was the report’s remit.