I did it first!
In London in 1997, life-sized plaster noses appeared all over London affixed to walls. They arrived without explanation or credit and, human beings being human beings, legends began to spring up around them.
They were all wrong. It wasn’t until 2011 that an artist named Rick Buckley took credit. They were all casts of his substantial hooter and they were placed directly beneath CCTV cameras. To protest CCTV cameras. You’d think someone would have noticed.
As it happens, way back in 1978, when I were in art school, I discovered an annoying fact. I wanted to learn real art skills – painting and sculpting and so on – and my teachers were all into thinky performance art. The only common ground I could find was surreal art: they’d let me do representational things if they were absurd.
I did a series of cartoons featuring a life-sized plasticine version of my own substantial nose. I really don’t remember anything about it except that I finished the project and had these…noses left over.
So I stuck them on things. As you do. And I don’t remember anything more about that except my fellow students were surprisingly tolerant of them and it was some time before the last one was stolen or destroyed.
I understand some of Buckley’s noses are still out there.
July 2, 2026 — 5:57 pm
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