‘Phallus’ fails to find favour in tourist town, with budgetary constraints and logistical problems blamed for final version of public artwork

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Byron Bay council is debating whether to decommission a controversial public artwork that some locals have dubbed the “Big Byron dick”.

The 12 metre-high sculpture by Melbourne artist Corey Thomas is the first public artwork commissioned by the council and is intended to depict 6,000 metal birds flying around a silhouette of Cape Byron Lighthouse.

It was erected as part of the new Bayshore Drive roundabout, which was constructed on one of the main entrances to the town. The entire project cost $5.6m but the sculpture – including design, materials and construction – was allocated $55,000.

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The result, mayor Simon Richardson said, was not quite what was envisioned.

“The time was too short and the budget was too little,” he told Guardian Australia. “There are a few lapses from council’s point of view which made the whole process not work.”

The short timeframe meant that expressions of interest were open for just a month and only three months were allowed between the tender being awarded and the delivery date, which meant that changes to the design and materials were approved by council workers but not brought back before the council’s public art panel.

Richardson said the construction itself, initially slated for seven days, was affected by landscaping that meant Thomas could not park a crane on the roundabout itself, and was then interrupted by a strict traffic management plan that sometimes required him to work at night with no lights.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The 12 metre-high sculpture by Melbourne artist Corey Thomas was erected as part of the new Bayshore Drive roundabout. Photograph: Brendan Beirne

He said Thomas received up to 100 verbally abusive comments each day from drivers held up in traffic jams due to the crane he was working on taking over one of the lanes.

On his last morning on site, Thomas began work at 5.30am to sculpt the aluminium birds, wrapped in ribbons around the cone structure, into something resembling flight. He believed he would have the whole day. Instead he was ordered off site at 8.30am. He has not been allowed back to work and has not commented publicly.

Nevertheless, Richardson likes the sculpture.

“I quite like it,” he said. “It is different to the conceptual drawing but really what was drawn was a sort of silhouette outline of the lighthouse surrounded by 6,000 birds, and when I drive along Ewingsdale Road I definitely see that outline.”

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Richardson said he would like to invite Thomas back to complete the sculpture and criticised some of the comparisons.

“Is a lighthouse a phallic shape?” he said. “Is the Leaning Tower of Pisa a phallic shape? At some point we need to grow up a little bit with our relish of saying the word ‘dick’.”

Councillor Jan Hackett, who was on the public art panel that chose the statue, as was Richardson, said the statue was unsalvageable.

She has filed a motion ahead of the council’s first meeting of the year, which will not be held for another six weeks, recommending the statue be decommissioned and Thomas be invited to use the materials to create another work.

“Take this down, because it is a flawed concept,” she said.

tim edwards (@Sportsocratic) Byron Bay tells coffs harbour, goulburn, ballina etc where they can shove their giant icons when it launches it's giant... dick! pic.twitter.com/owoZd3ELEz

Hackett said the original concept was approved subject to the full design specifications and plans being seen by council and a member of the panel, and that the change in structure that occurred when Thomas switched material from stainless steel to aluminium would not have been approved had the panel retained oversight.

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“We were expecting that no matter what we put there we would get complaints and abuse,” Hackett said. “We were prepared very strongly to defend the original concept, but both the panel and myself are not prepared to defend what we have ended up with.”

Hackett said the “broken result” was “not the artist’s fault” and blamed the flawed, rushed process.

“It is a huge embarrassment for everybody involved,” she said.