What Is... monuments?

摘要

In Liverpool this autumn, Monuments is the pairing of the very grand neoclassical Martins Bank with paintings by Terry Duffy. The artist has taken over the centre of the banking hall with a 30 x 20ft black enclosure which creates a gallery for his work and a frame for the arches and ceiling of Herbert J Rowse's 1932 bank. Duffy is intrigued by what we choose to monumentalise and how. He has been working on projects looking at the ancient form of marking such things, standing stones. But in modern life simple vertical stones are not enough, as the richness and decoration of Martins Bank shows. Duffy's Standing Stones, now on show at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, are dense oils on ripped hot press board. But Monuments is more of a dialogue between Duffy's work and Martins Bank. 'We have far larger monuments than standing stones today,' says Duffy. They are there to monumentalise wealth, aspiration, our obsession with money, civic pride.'