A kiss for F. D. Roosevelt, a selfie with Denzler’s Selfie - Intermingling of art, life and encounter at Mayfair Sculpture Trail 2022

[I should begin by pointing out that, having taken part in running of the event I am discussing, the review I am about to write cannot be an impartial one; nevertheless, having had no involvement in the curatorial decision-making, I hope to have a certain critical distance, and be able to approach the Sculpture Trail from the perspective of a member of the public.]

I was part of the volunteer team in this year’s Mayfair Art Weekend and the accompanying Mayfair Sculpture Trail. The annual outdoor sculpture exhibition started three years ago, just a year before central London got deserted of visitors on an unseen scale.

The trail is a self-guided walk that can be followed in a clockwise direction. It is free, and accessible 24/7 for over a month. It is a delightful way to spend time in the gallery district of Mayfair and to get to know its streets lined with fashion and art, its green squares and hidden alleyways. The route’s 19 sculptures each have a short introduction to the artist’s intention in a catalogue booklet; along with an audio guide, the information can also be accessed on the event’s website, and via QR codes located near each artwork.

There is no shortage of public art in the City of Westminster – over 400 artworks are on permanent public display! – however, while most are royal and imperial figures dating back to the 18th and 19th centuries, Mayfair Sculpture Trail is a celebration of contemporary sculpture. Eight of the trail’s sculptures were presented by local galleries and assembled in outdoor locations on a temporary basis. The other artworks consist of a selection of permanent public sculptures, some free-standing, some integral to the architecture of nearby buildings.

The works included are approachable in terms of subject matter. Where figuration is present the figures tend to be abstracted and relatable to anyone of any gender. Maurice Blik’s Dancer (2020), number one on the map of Mayfair Sculpture Trail 2022, has been temporarily assembled in Grosvenor Gardens. Cast on a low plinth, the Holocaust survivor artist’s bronze figure is the same size as the crowd of children playing football around it. Witnessing the loud and joyful scene I can’t imagine a better way to exhibit the life-affirming work.

Allies (1995) by Lawrence Holofcener is one of the oldest sculptures included in the trail this year. It commemorates 50 years of peace, and pictures F. D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill sitting comfortably on a street-level bench in the middle of New Bond Street, as if deeply engaged in friendly and light-hearted conversation. One of my duties as a member of the volunteering team was to spend fifteen minutes by Allies, and the street’s other two representational human-scale figures: Elisabeth Frink’s Horse and Rider (1974) and, further north, Andy Denzler’s Selfie (2016).

I didn’t stop smiling at the richness of the spontaneous creative responses to the sculptures by members of the public. Everyone seemed to be wanting a selfie with Frink’s equestrian male nude. Denzler’s Selfie got selfies taken of herself, but the captivating figure, and the temporary placement of it on the pavement amongst other pedestrians, also made people simply stop and look at the work with interest. The bronze-cast bench of Allies was constantly busy with members of the public sitting between its figures of Roosevelt and Churchill. A game of dare between two siblings led to an 8-year-old kissing Roosevelt, to her mother’s surprise!

I briefly found myself standing amongst an international group of young adults who had come to see Jill Berelowitz’s Moving Forward (2017), a group of nine abstracted figures whose genders are not explicit. Standing huddled by the loud traffic of ever-busy Park Lane we looked like a doubling of the sculpture. “Who are the people in the sculpture and what does the work mean?” someone asked. “They are women, definitely women and they are planning how humanity needs to move forward”, said one. “I think the sculpture represents Asian people in London and how they are not sometimes appreciated”, said another. Yet a third interpretation was that “in how the figures look so similar to each other, the sculpture reminds me of how people are essentially herd animals and can make decisions without real awareness. That’s why individual thinking is important for humanity to move forward.”

I happened to be hosting some teenage relatives shortly after the Trail opened, and further to test the grounds of my enthusiasm for its accessible charm, I handed each of them a catalogue with a map and advised them to use the photos in the booklet to spot the artworks on location. Reporting back in the evening, they told me they had not found Banksy’s Falling Shopper (2011), painted high on a wall of a building on Bruton Lane. However, the boys were enthusiastic about Michael Speller’s Nourish (2018) with its long and narrow-legged sculptural figures. I love the idea that my teenage visitors’ memories of their trip will be spiced with experiences of seeking and finding sculptures in the city. I think that the outdoor setting of the exhibition, along with the taste for adventure were essential to them sticking with the task of looking at contemporary sculpture!

I am left wondering which of the well-known sculptors’ artworks is the essence of the exhibition? Rather than emphasising singular works, I think the main factor in the success of the event is how people and art interact. Spontaneous participation becomes inseparable from experiencing the exhibition itself. The Sculpture Trail succeeds thanks to an aesthetics of curation that considers all aspects of the event, from the activity of walking the trail in historic Mayfair to the selection, placing and presentation of the artworks. This curatorial work is, I think, the wow factor in this exhibition. The exhibition’s audience-friendly format is due to a varied selection of artworks with bite-sized information available and the ‘orienteering’ aspect of the experience. With its flavour of adventure the trail is likely to spark enthusiasm in sculpture even in people who have not previously paid attention to 3D artworks before.