Greenock, Scotland
Though Scottish sculptor George Wyllie came to art late in life, the works that he created from the early 1980s onward established him as a shaman-like folk figure in post-industrial Glasgow. Wyllie and the River Clyde were hand in glove. Born in 1921, he grew up in sight of the city’s busy shipyards, while his adult home and workshop in Gourock overlooked the river’s inky mouth. Now, over a decade after his death in 2012 at the age of 91, he has a museum dedicated to his work, its floor-to-ceiling windows providing panoramic views over the Firth of Clyde.
Wyllie’s art often asked poignant questions about the legacy of Glasgow’s once world-renowned shipbuilding and engineering industries. For The Straw Locomotive (1986), a life-size straw steam train was hauled in the air by one of the few remaining fixed cranes still standing on the Clyde before being set on fire to reveal a large question mark within its wire frame. Three years later, Paper Boat saw Wyllie taking to the river in an 80-foot-long “paper” boat—actually white gauze and plastic over a steel frame—which later set sail in London, New York, and Antwerp. The accompanying “Paper Boat Song” provided some wittily sardonic context, including the refrain: “We’re all at sea in a paper boat, a paper boat, paper boat. The rule of Britannia is very remote, from what it used to be.”
Wyllie had no formal art training, although he did take a course in welding. Prior to becoming a full-time artist in 1979, he spent 30 years as a Customs and Excise Officer, and before that, he was in the Royal Navy. It’s entirely appropriate then that the punningly named Wyllieum museum forms part of the new Greenock Ocean Terminal building, where vast cruise ships dock to disembark and welcome passengers. Turn left in the entrance lobby and you’re heading for the “Nothing to Declare” channel; right, and you’re in the museum’s gift shop. The museum itself is a small, two-story space that feels openhearted and accessible, much like the artist’s work.
Wyllie described himself as a “scul?tor”—he had a thing about question marks—and believed that asking awkward questions about the world we live in was the artist’s role. He subscribed to Joseph Beuys’s idea of social sculpture—the pair became good friends after meeting in 1981—and the American kinetic sculptor George Rickey was another key influence and friend. The impact of both these artists can be seen in Wyllie’s Spire sculptures, which feature in The Wyllieum’s opening exhibition, “I Once Went Down to the Sea Again” (on view through September 1, 2024). These beautifully simple, kinetic forms represent a kind of meeting point between Wyllie’s artistic influences and his personal preoccupations, in particular his deep interest in the ordinary, everyday interactions that make us human.
The Spires come in varying sizes and usually feature a three-legged base supporting an upright pole made of either wood or metal, held in place by a heavy object such as a stone—sited outside, the poles would gently sway in the wind. There are nine complete spires in the exhibition—dating from the early 1980s to 2003—displayed on two raised platforms and the floor, among them, a pair of portable versions (both from 1984) with specially made leather carrying cases, perfect for mobile memorializing of whichever spot took Wyllie’s fancy. The museum’s permanent display includes film footage of him doing just that.
Wyllie deployed the Spires as markers in the landscape, setting them on moorland, hilltops, and in streams. They were light-touch monuments commemorating the ground beneath our feet. In the gallery, they form a curiously moving configuration. They seem to embody something profoundly spiritual—they point to the heavens, they reference church architecture—at the same time, they remain rooted in the material, human, industrial world that Wyllie was so connected to and interested in. Despite their age, the contemporary relevance of these works in the midst of a climate emergency isn’t hard to fathom. It seems that Wyllie’s work, in its singular way, is still asking questions, still prodding the viewer for answers.
