Head of Hitchcock

“For everyone, sooner or later, the day comes when we bring our gaze down along the drainpipes and we can no longer detach it from the cobblestones.”

-Calvino, Invisible Cities (Zemrude)

Some of London’s public sculptures live in the most unexpected places.

Some of it is so big you can walk past without noticing – such as the 55-feet high Fulcrum by Richard Serra. Made from towering planks of free standing steel, it is nevertheless easy to miss, wedged among the even taller office buildings outside Liverpool Station’s drab Broadgate back entrance.

Sometimes, the most intriguing sculptures are hard to find. To hunt down a particularly obscure example, go to the Gainsborough Studios just north of Shoreditch Park (enter from Poole Street).  Turn the first corner into the courtyard and you suddenly come face to face with a giant sculpture of the pouting, inquisitive-looking head of Alfred Hitchcock.

His calm gaze is fixed straight ahead.