Illustration of four male figures, three of whom are engaged in artistic activities while the fourth stands on top of a mountain with his back to us. Printed in red and cream ink. The same image was also produced in black ink.
In an interview with Glasgow Print Studio on 14th July 2010, the artist explained, “I’d done a neon piece of a walking stick but I was interested in the idea of John Ruskin and this person here [on the far right] is from a painting by the German artist Casper David Friedrich. He’s got a walking stick, as well and so did John Ruskin, he had the walking stick. The idea of strength in weakness, I was interested in that. I did a big painting about the same time which is in GOMA, ‘Weeds in the Landscape’ and it’s about weakness and strength through weakness. It’s a monument or celebration of weakness. In a way there’s a sort of power.
I used to get comics, American comics, and one was the Mighty Thor, who’s a doctor or something like that. And he had a walking stick and he’d strike the ground with it and it would turn into his hammer."
Wiszniewski explained the abbreviations used;
B.C/B.S =British Critic as British Sculptor. “So he’s looking at a walking stick as a piece of sculpture”.
B.C/B.Pu = “British Critic/British Public, I think, is about communicating through taking the stand where you become a personality"
B.C./B.P. = BC/British Painter “This is where you take the point at the end of it [the walking stick] and do a painting with it.”
B.C. =” And this is your British Critic who has a view of the world.”
“I did a painting as well called ‘British Critic, British Painter, British Sculptor’ and it’s in Aberdeen Art Gallery. I’d been talking to Christopher Le Brun, who’s a British Painter, and we talked about the roles of British sculptors and British painters and how they’re different and how at that time, as it is now, British Sculpture is a brand. Britain had missed the boat really with painting, partly [because] the Germans, the Italians had cornered the market but because we had Henry Moore, there’s a line through Henry Moore and Antony Caro, and you could actually start creating a sculptural heritage. So Britain put all its money into promoting British sculpture. That was understandable, that meant Britain had a role in the international world. Other people didn’t want to touch it because sculpture’s very expensive to show. It’s ok for Tony Cragg who turns up with a sack of plastic toys and sticks them to the wall!"
Wiszniewski continued, "It was done as a print for the Fruitmarket Gallery as I had a retrospective in 1990 there so that was done in 1990 as part of a fundraiser.”
