Walking the Line

THE LINE SCULPTURE TRAIL

or Tracey, Trails and Trolleys

REACHING OUT BY THOMAS J PRICE

STORY: DAVID YOUNG IMAGES: DAVID YOUNG

Idon’t like being told what to do. I’ll generally do the precise opposite. I’ve been a rebel from my earliest years. When told to eat my rusk, I steadfastly looked my mother in the eye and said “Shan’t”. I rebelled at school, where, surprisingly, I learned very little but was really good at lighting matches. And I rebelled in later life, which was not approved of at all by a series of employers, who would politely ask me to look elsewhere for a living.

But put me on a footpath and show me a sign and I conform like a well-trained puppy. ‘Turn left’ – will do. ‘Go this way next’ – just try and stop me.

Show me a sign and I meekly obey. If you suggest, for one moment, that we might try turning right, I’ll shout you down, saying “The sign says we must turn left.” To me there is nothing so pleasing as a Trail. They’ll tell you where to go and what to see and then they’ll tell you when to stop. They’ll tell you in advance how long to take and what to wear. I’ll never rebel when a Trail is involved. Well you could have knocked me down with a feather (I’m old and frail) when someone told me there was an art trail in East London (I’m not very bright), leading from (or to) the Olympic Park. It was initiated in 2015 (I’m quite slow on the uptake). The Line consists of three sections, connected by short hops on the public transport, and is principally waterside paths that lead you past various artworks by people so famous that even I had heard of them (I’m not very clever). Try Tracey Emin for size, or Anthony Gormley. You get to walk in three boroughs – Greenwich, Tower Hamlets and Newham – and you broadly follow the Greenwich Meridian. This last bit of info is a bit spurious. You’re better off following the signs. I got a bit muddled at one point, but, on asking if anyone had seen a Greenwich Meridian,

was met with puzzled stares. They’re stoical, the Tower Hamleters. The art which you encounter along the way – no, go on, let’s be ultra-cool – the installations which you encounter in these spaces – are explained on panels. Some may say that art should need no explanation. To me, (I’m mainly befuddled) almost everything needs explanation. The words on the panels made a good deal of sense without seeming pretentious. If you do the whole thing in one go, it’s about three hours of walking plus a couple of transfers between stretches. One of these is aboard the Emirate Air Line. I thought we’d be catching a plane, but, disappointingly, it’s that cable car. If you like modern art, you’ll be happy. If you hate modern art, then you can have a really good time moaning about everything along the way. I did it twice, once humming appreciatively at the nuanced messages of the installations, then again tutting every time I saw anything and grumbling to anyone who would listen about declining values and shouting that they should have put up some Constables. Happy days. Don’t think the stoical Tower Hamleters thought much of me though. If you don’t like art, you can enjoy the walk anyway Let me pick out a couple of highlights (or, if you’re a grumbler, a couple of bits of blithering nonsense). Near Three Mills in Stratford stands Thomas J Price’s statue called ‘Reaching Out’. Now I realise that this, in itself, is a phrase that

MITTAL ORBIT BY AHI will set the grumblers a-grumbling. But bear with, bear with. It’s a most imposing bronze sculpture of a young woman looking at her phone, and it’s a juxtaposition of isolation and connectedness. Very good. (Or absolute garbage.) I also liked (or hated) a spiral of shopping trolleys by Abigail Falls called DNA DL 90, with the spiral mimicking the helix of DNA, hinting at our obsession with consumerism. It was also, it has to be said, a fascinating walk through the landscape along the River Lea to the Thames, some of it unreconstructed wastelands waiting to happen, or the modern world of the Olympic Park, or the stubborn eighteenth century house standing against a backdrop of City skyscrapers across a landscape of reeds. The perfect scene at which to smile and to sneer simultaneously, to love and to hate at the same time. Ironically, you also pass the West Ham ground – now there is something you either love or hate.

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