Ob-La-Di, Objet d’art

Photo 7. London

10 November. NZ War Memorial, Hyde Park Corner.

I don’t remember exactly, so let’s just say this is right…

I had a holiday job, which meant I had my own money to buy proper Christmas presents. And I really thought about what people would like. For my dad—who was a history teacher, and who loved history—I found a paperweight: a little bust of Captain James Cook. I have no idea whether he liked it or not—or if he understood why I thought he might like it—but he put it on his desk in his study, next to his pipe-smoker’s ashtray, and that’s where it stayed.

It’s something we do, isn’t it. Give each other stuff. Inanimate objects: Objet d’art. Things that can’t be eaten; that aren’t, generally, ‘useful’ (paper weights excepted of course); that have little or no abiding monetary value. We may not even like them—wouldn’t have bought them ourselves—but we keep them, because they connect us to whoever they were from. And so they accumulate in our homes, and gardens and workplaces, filling our spaces.

They each have their wairua: their own spirit. In some cultures, we’d be buried with them. They can be the hardest bits to deal with, when someone does die, because they become part of who we are. They tell our story.

Countries, and cities, accumulate objet d’art too. Give each other stuff. France gave New York the Statue of Liberty. Aotearoa New Zealand gave London this war memorial.

Predictably, not everybody liked it. The editor of The Burlington Magazine (‘The world’s leading monthly publication devoted to the fine and decorative arts’) called it…

An infestation of public space. A bristlingly unlovely installation in one of the most public sites in London.

Mind you, he described another installation as…

about as romantic as a couple who have just been refused a mortgage.

…so maybe we got off lightly. He demanded ‘A Controller of Inanimate People’ to get a grip on London’s accumulation—pestilent proliferation—of objet d’art. (Perhaps every home should have one?)

Personally, I think it’s wonderful. And I think, if I lived in London (as around 60,000 Kiwis do), I’d visit it often, to touch base with home. The Katherine Mansfield quote alone would make you feel good…

The mānuka and sheep country, very steep and bare, yet relieved here and there by rivers, willows and little lush ravines. We camped on top of a hill, mountains all around. I want to write about my own country until I simply exhaust my store¹.

As good as a letter from your Mum.

And so much more interesting than a bulky block of granite topped by a man on a horse.

Or a bust of Captain Cook.

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Next week: Belinda’s Horse

1. Reproduced on one of the pillars. From The Letters and Journals of Katherine Mansfield: A selection.