Sandy Stoddart Lecture
Monday 9 February 2009
Internationally acclaimed sculptor, Alexander Stoddart, who was recently appointed the Queen’s official sculptor in Scotland, delivered a public lecture on Monday 9 February 2009 at University of the West of Scotland’s Management Centre in Ayr.
The lecture, which is part of the University’s Inspiring People leadership series, saw Stoddart, whose studios are based at the University’s Paisley Campus, present and discuss ‘The Fallacy of Progress; Thoughts on the Culture of Return'.
Stoddart questioned whether a movement ‘forward’ always amounts to a movement towards the better, and whether artistic culture can prosper under the same conditions in which science can flourish. In his discourse, Stoddart used examples from official contemporary art to ask if a false culture is their result.
Stoddart was appointed the Queen's official sculptor in Scotland on 30 December 2008. ‘Her Majesty's Sculptor in Ordinary in Scotland’ is one of only two posts for the arts in the Royal Household in Scotland.
Commenting on the lecture Stoddart said: "I was delighted and honoured to give the inaugural talk in this series of lectures. Nobody is in any doubt as to the complexities of the financial crisis we currently experience, however few have paused to consider if there is a similar situation obtaining in the artistic ‘economy’. The extension of credit to those unable to repay is paralleled in the extension of another sort of credit to those unable to draw. Cultural progressivism has been the root cause of this occidental disaster."
Stoddart created the monument to Rev. John D Witherspoon, which is positioned at the entrance to the University’s Paisley Campus. In addition to a Royal commission for the Queen’s Gallery in Buckingham Palace in honour of the Jubilee, Stoddart’s works include a statue of David Hume in Edinburgh, a monument to Robert Burns in Kilmarnock, a statue of Adam Smith in Edinburgh’s Royal Mile and a recent monument to James Clerk Maxwell in the city’s George Street.
