This is Robert Waterhouse writing on 12 June 1967 in The Guardian the year these beasts appeared. Clearly Salford students were well up on classical allusion.
‘At the entrance to the inner square of Salford Technical College three concrete figures stand guard. They link the solid, functional north-west wing with the more elegant, sculptural lecture theatre. They are seen as easily from the main road as from a third-floor teaching room. They are of Florentine size, though the students have understood their more primitive nature and christened them the Three Aphrodites - Urania, the heavenly one. Genetrex, the earth mother, and Pome, purveyor of lust.
‘To William Mitchell, their creator, they are simply decorative objects, a landscaping commission which he completed in ten days, casting each figure on site straight from the mixer into four or five polyurethane moulds at the low approximate cost of £4,000. Mitchell's gay, gargantuan objects were included in the architects' contract for the college; it was they who suggested to Mitchell that he should work on three figures. They also felt that the large end wall of the first floor concourse needed decoration, but they couldn't afford to allow far this in their estimates.
‘Incongruous in Salford? The Victorians loved extravaganzas in the heart of their industrial miasmas. Here are worthy successors, and in much better planned surroundings.’
I love these monsters. Lots of people despise them. At first sight they seem as dated as footage from Woodstock with beads, mini-skirts and headbands. But get up close, walk around them, peep into their nooks and crannies, rub your hands over their folds and bulges, and there’s a certain sensual attractive horror to them. Mitchell deliberately mixed up the colour scheme, the types of concrete and even included bits of mosaic.
He was naughty though in offering no interpretation of what they might mean (his title was 'Untitled') although we know he was having an 'Aztec moment' as you can tell from the style? Was he teasing us with a work that subsequently he knew might sum up urban alienation? Probably not but the good news is that in 2012 the monsters were Grade II listed.
‘At the entrance to the inner square of Salford Technical College three concrete figures stand guard. They link the solid, functional north-west wing with the more elegant, sculptural lecture theatre. They are seen as easily from the main road as from a third-floor teaching room. They are of Florentine size, though the students have understood their more primitive nature and christened them the Three Aphrodites - Urania, the heavenly one. Genetrex, the earth mother, and Pome, purveyor of lust.
‘To William Mitchell, their creator, they are simply decorative objects, a landscaping commission which he completed in ten days, casting each figure on site straight from the mixer into four or five polyurethane moulds at the low approximate cost of £4,000. Mitchell's gay, gargantuan objects were included in the architects' contract for the college; it was they who suggested to Mitchell that he should work on three figures. They also felt that the large end wall of the first floor concourse needed decoration, but they couldn't afford to allow far this in their estimates.
‘Incongruous in Salford? The Victorians loved extravaganzas in the heart of their industrial miasmas. Here are worthy successors, and in much better planned surroundings.’
I love these monsters. Lots of people despise them. At first sight they seem as dated as footage from Woodstock with beads, mini-skirts and headbands. But get up close, walk around them, peep into their nooks and crannies, rub your hands over their folds and bulges, and there’s a certain sensual attractive horror to them. Mitchell deliberately mixed up the colour scheme, the types of concrete and even included bits of mosaic.
He was naughty though in offering no interpretation of what they might mean (his title was 'Untitled') although we know he was having an 'Aztec moment' as you can tell from the style? Was he teasing us with a work that subsequently he knew might sum up urban alienation? Probably not but the good news is that in 2012 the monsters were Grade II listed.
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