A Communist Icon Toppled in Ukraine Is Restored. In England.
His resurrection in Manchester, where he conducted research on the working class in the 1840s, is thanks to Phil Collins — the acclaimed artist who has made Engels the centerpiece of
his most recent project, "Ceremony." "I started working on this theme about 10 years ago," said Mr. Collins, who was nominated for the Turner Prize for British visual arts in 2006.
At the University of Salford, not far from where Engels worked at his family-owned mill, an innovative sculpture of Engels’s iconic beard, meant to be climbed, is intended, the university claims, "to inspire the next generation of artists, musicians
and performers." The statue is now installed in the city center to grant Engels "official recognition," Mr. Collins said.
Immersing himself in the history of the Industrial Revolution
and of socialism in Manchester, he stumbled upon a quote by a local civil servant, who raised the idea of transporting an Engels statue from Ukraine to Manchester.
Mr. Collins traveled for about a year across Eastern Europe before finally finding his prize in an agricultural compound in a district
that he said was once named after Engels in the Poltava region of eastern Ukraine.
The Engels project was funded by the Manchester City Council
and was featured recently as the closing event of the biennial Manchester International Festival of the arts.
"I think we should let things lie and rather have a statue of somebody representing the region, not somebody who’s come from somewhere else."
She suggested another influential part-time Mancunian, who worked at The Manchester Evening News for three years: "Why not George Orwell?"
The festival’s artistic director, John McGrath, said he expected the statue’s new location to "invite people to think
and ignite debate." In Mr. Collins’s words: "What’s interesting about socialism is that it announces itself." Why Engels?