Ship Of The Week – M/V Slice of Reality

. The Greenwich Phantom blog brings us a slice of reality;

One of the sculptures commissioned for the Millennium Dome, Slice of Reality is looking a little the worse for wear these days, but perhaps that’s part of its charm – after all – when did you last see a ship – whole or otherwise – that didn’t have a few rust stains around the edges?It was created by Richard Wilson (no, not that one) who specialises in making familiar objects strange (thank youMr Brecht) by cutting up architectural forms. He’s most famous for that roomful of used sump oil that Charles Saatchi bought – you know – the one where the viewer had to walk in little channels so they could see the world reflected in the goo. I never saw it myself but anything that is equally loved and hated by the art world must have been worth a view… 

Slice of Reality is the middle chunk of a ship that has been cut out, glass put over the sides so you can peer in and mounted on the riverbed. It’s supposed to continue the line of the Meridian, as though the line itself had cut through the ship, I understand. It “is a celebration of merchant shipping on the Thames” which is quite ironic really, since it could be argued that it was the Canary Wharf/Isle of Dogs and ultimately the Peninsula projects that really sealed the fate of merchant shipping on the Thames. Continue Reading… 

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