At the top of Leith Walk there is a giant bronze foot sculpture. It’s been moved around a bit recently but it’s back where it was originally intended to be. It’s a great meeting point now, somewhere to arrange a date, and hang out before going on a walk or to the pub.
The big foot, along with a hand and ankle is a sculpture, called “The Manuscript of Monte Cassino” by Eduardo Paolozzi. He was Edinburgh-born, but mostly lived in England. He was knighted and appointed as the Queen’s Sculptor. You were near him once, when he came into the gallery with the art critic while we were installing the Max Ernst exhibition. He was getting a sneak preview, as was his prerogative. There are quite a few Paolozzi works dotted around Edinburgh; at the Portrait Gallery, at the University, outside in the grounds of SNGMA and round the back by the café. There’s one giant one, “Vulcan” inside the café across the road. Last time you saw it, it seemed dusty, it sits there looming over people drinking coffees. You say you hope it has been dusted.
Also, in this gallery is his studio. It’s a simulacrum. All the items which filled his working environment have been gathered together, boxed up and redisplayed in the gallery. It’s a fine experience. There is an enormous amount of plaster casts, books, magazines, tables, toys and knick-knacks. Although you have to view it from one side, from behind a railing, it’s visually very stimulating. You have been to see it a couple of times now, over the years. It’s still the same, you presume. Paolozzi died in 2005, so his studio has become a memorial. It might have been interesting to dismantle and ship the entire building it was housed in. To fully encapsulate the atmosphere, or maybe just leave it where it was and we go to it.
Back at the Foot, you remember another sculpture being sited around here. It was a kinetic sculpture, like a crane-tower of white fluorescent tubes, switching on and off. In your memory from the top deck of a bus, you can still see it; a metal angular structure, the light moving up and down and round. You wonder where it went, hoping it’s still around somewhere, in storage at the Council roads department depot.
Iain Irving 