I took a look at Pimlico Gardens earlier in the week, discovering Andre Wallace’s exposed sailor. As it turns out, he’s been busy elsewhere in the local area – on the corner of Vauxhall Bridge Road and Moreton St in Pimlico is his dramatic 2010 installation of a girl on roller skates. It was supposed to be erected to coincide with a new housing development which, as you’ll see from the photographs, hasn’t happened yet so the statue stands in front of a rather forlorn-looking empty plot of land… I love it, it just shouts speed and movement.
Just around the corner behind Pimlico station and next to the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) is Eduardo Paolozzi’s ventilation tower sculpture (which does actually disguise a ventilation shaft down to the tube station below). I can’t say I enjoy his work – it all seems rather oppressive (perhaps that’s the point?). Other massive sculptures by Paolozzi can be found across town – two of the largest are outside Euston Station and on the riverside next to the Design Museum on the South Bank.