An excellent sculpture.
We wonder what constitutes excellence.
We argue about it.
When a sculpture speaks audibly and clearly, when it sings, we should not be churlish.
Celebrate where celebration is due.
This sculpture comes across initially as illustrative, too cute.
But the sculpture actually sings, as magpies do. You can see how the birds make a song with their throats, how they too are charmed by the sound they make, their eyes all stunned, transfixed. You can see by the way their heads are tilted to each other that their song is in harmony.
The music, the score is emblazoned across their chests, just the one score. Appropriate.
The eyes are quotations marks that underline the score.
Their feathers are all a quiver.
The two birds are held away from their centre by an open frame. They are not constrained.
This birdsong is not the domain of serious sculpture. It has no business to be here and yet, how could we deny ourselves the pleasure the bird song brings?
Does the presence of song constitute the presence of excellence?
Yes!