Why are modern statues so bad?
NO SUCH THING
iHeartPodcasts and Kaleidoscope
4.6 • 609 Ratings
🗓️ 24 September 2025
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Why does it seem so common that modern sculptures of iconic figures look so bad? Soccer star Ronaldo, NBA legend Dwyane Wade, and even the great Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. have been frankly disgraced by sub-par and strange renditions. Is creating a great statue a lost art, or are we being unfair? This week, we talk to a real sculptor to find out.
Our guest this week is John Belardo.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey everyone. This episode features a lot of discussion about statues, which are things that you can |
| 0:04.9 | famously see, but not here. So we have an image gallery on our substack and our Instagram page. |
| 0:10.5 | If you want to take a look and follow along, you can just hit the links in our show notes below. |
| 0:14.5 | All right, on to the show. I'm Annie. I'm Noah. This is Devin. And this is no such thing, |
| 0:19.8 | the show where we settle our dumb arguments and yours by actually doing the research. |
| 0:24.1 | On this week's episode, why do new statues look so bad? |
| 0:30.9 | There's no such thing. |
| 0:32.9 | No such thing. |
| 0:35.8 | No such thing. No such thing. No such thing. So, such thing. |
| 0:38.8 | So, such thing. |
| 0:41.8 | No, such thing. |
| 0:46.5 | So, here's a topic that comes up every few months. |
| 0:50.5 | There will be an unveiling of a new sculpture celebrating an iconic historical figure, politician, |
| 0:55.6 | entertainer, often an athlete recently. And the statue just looks horrible. It might look like a person, |
| 1:03.0 | but not that person. Proportions are off. Or even just like it's kind of close, but just strange. |
| 1:08.4 | Yeah. And it's tough because we all these are very famous people |
| 1:12.0 | that's the big issue we really know we see all the time pretty recognizable exactly speaking of which |
| 1:18.7 | on the screen here our listeners can't see it but of course it'll be on our newsletter probably the |
| 1:23.1 | most infamous one in recent memory even though it's from 2017 is the statue that we're looking at of soccer star, Cristiano Ronaldo. A very handsome man in real life. Yeah, a real Chad. Yes. And it was unveiled at Madeira Airport in Santa Cruz when the airport was officially renamed. I didn't know this part. It's the Christiano Ronaldo International Airport. What the fuck?inaldo international airport so it's a pretty big deal |
| 1:45.0 | they rename the airport i thought it was like all right he's you know he's a legend let's have a |
| 1:48.9 | let's have a little statue there's a rinaldo airport but there's not a messy airport you're going |
| 1:53.0 | through the trouble of renaming the airport and then this is the statue that you make |
... |
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