Joy Division: Peter Hook says mural row should prompt Ian Curtis statue

A row that followed the painting over of a mural of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis should be an incentive to create a statue of him, his ex-bandmate says.

Peter Hook, co-founder of Joy Division with Curtis, said the singer and late band manager Tony Wilson should be honoured in Manchester and Salford.

A row erupted when it emerged the mural was replaced with one promoting the new album of rapper MC Aitch.

The Manchester rapper promised to have the mural “fixed pronto”.

The promo for his Close to Home album was put up over the image of Curtis in Manchester’s Northern Quarter.

Hook said he sympathised with Aitch because the Curtis mural, painted by artist Akse P19 for a mental health charity in 2020, was on a prime commercial advertising site.

“We have to bear in mind that it is an advertising site, it was paid for by Mental Health Day for a certain period,” Hook said.

“Business moves on and so it’s no wonder Aitch didn’t know about it as it was probably done by the company who looks after his advertising.”

Hook added: “I feel sorry for the guy because he was so hurt by the obvious reaction, it was a terrible situation for him.”

Hook, who was present at the painting of the Curtis mural, said it had meant a lot to Joy Division fans 40 years after the singer took his own life at his home in 1980, shortly before the Salford band were due to go on tour in the US.

He told BBC 5Live’s Colin Murray: I was there with him [Akse P19] as he was finishing off the portrait.

“One of Ian Curtis’s cousins came, who I hadn’t met, and it was amazing because I had to bring Aksie over and say to him ‘look at how you’ve caught him’, because the cousin had the same mannerisms and the intensity in his eyes, which was one of the wonderful things about Ian.

“That mural did stand for a lot. I wouldn’t have liked to have been the guy painting over Ian knowing that area of Manchester, it is just a sad occurrence.

“I suppose in a funny way maybe it will spur someone on to celebrate these people [Curtis and Wilson] in Manchester or Salford,” said Hook.

Noting that a permanent mural was painted in Curtis’s home town of Macclesfield earlier this year, Hook said he had been campaigning for years to get statues of Curtis and Wilson in Manchester and Salford.

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