Oxford Rhodes statue should be turned to face wall, says Antony Gormley
The statue of Cecil Rhodes at Oriel College, Oxford, should be turned to face the wall in shame, the sculptor Antony Gormley has proposed.
Gormley’s suggestion, made in an interview with the Financial Times, would be an innovative solution to a years-long battle over whether the 19th-century colonialist and white supremacist should remain in pride of place at the university.
Gormley said the statue should stay, the FT reported. But he added: “If we need to readdress our relationship to him, I would just simply turn him to face the wall rather than facing outwards.”
Turning Rhodes to face the wall would be “an acknowledgment of collective shame” that would also “reassert the fact that Oriel College and many institutions have property from Rhodes’s riches”, the FT quoted Gormley as saying.
Rhodes was instrumental in the establishment of the British colony of Rhodesia, covering what is now Zambia and Zimbabwe, and set up the diamond company De Beers. His last will endowed Oxford University to set up the Rhodes scholarship, the oldest graduate scholarship in the world, which was initially restricted to men from territories of the British empire, Germany and the US.
