Adam Nathaniel Furman, Proud Little Pyramid, Commissioned by Argent LLP, London, UK.
Proud Little Pyramid, a commission for Argent LLP, used the recycled structure of the previous year’s giant Kings Cross Christmas tree to create a monumental anti-monument whose shape embodies urban grandiosity, but whose decoration drags that monumentality into being a fabulous performance of exuberant queerness that references the architectural history of King’s Cross, as well as its history of being a place of free expression, kinship and pleasure for the city as a whole from the Panarmonion Pleasure Gardens in the early 19C, to its central place in the history of Queer London from the 80s until the early 2000s, the last part of which the artist was a most avid participant in.
The emoji-glif faces act to completely break down any possible remaining sense of masculine monumentality, and ensure that the pyramid is approachable, anthropomorphised, human, cute… and cute in the defiantly subversive sense that it operates on the passer-by’s empathy, in the inimitable way a cute puppy or a wide-eyed baby draws us in with a sense of care and instantaneous attachment.
