W. is unimpressed by the regeneration of the quayside, with its so-called public art. So-called public art is invariably a form of marketing for property development, he says. It's inevitably the forerunner of gentrification.
W. is an enemy of art. We ought to fine artists rather than subsidise them, he says. They ought to be subject to systematic purges. He's never doubted we need some kind of Cultural Revolution.
The real art of the city is industrial, of course. Spiller's Wharf. The four stories of the flax mill in the Ouseburn Valley. W. likes to imagine the people of Newcastle, the old working class, coming to reclaim the quayside. What need did anchorsmiths and salt-panners have for a cultural quarter? Why can't the descendants of the keelmen, who ferried coal down the river, of the rope-makers and waggon-drivers come and redeem the new ghettoes for the rich. In his imagination, they're coming to smash the public art and tear down the new buildings.
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