Alert, alert alert!!!

photo from cnnc.om

It's been eight months since I posted here, but this story is so big I can't ignore it. I'd love reactions.

Last Week, Madame Tussaud's in Berlin installed a wax figure of the famous and reviled former dictator of that country, Adolph "Der Fuhrer" Hitler. I have to say that from the pix I've seen, it was pretty lifelike. It should have been since it cost months of labor and over $300000 to put together.

Of course there were the knee jerk reactions- "How could you put him amongst celebrities and pop stars?" "You're revering him by including him", "You're making monehy off other people's misery," yadayadayada, completely ignoring that he's in other Tussaud shops around the world along with Genghis Khan and Saddam Hussein. As a matter of fact, Tussaud's in London installed Hitler when he first became chancellor in 1933, but had to keep him under glass until Osama (Al Quaeda) Bin Laden outstripped him in the fear and loathing sweepstakes.

Tussaud's pointed out that they were careful to depict him as worn and defeated, just before he offed himself in the bunker. Politically correct. And, because it's against the law in Germany to glorify those Nazi years and personalities, people were verboten from taking pix of Herr Hitler or posing with him "out of respect for the millions who died during WWII". The enforced the "no touching, no kissing" rule. Police were warned that the image might become a pilgrimage stop for the new generation skinheads. Helmut Kohl, who's also included in the show, is seeking legal counsel. George Bush is not.

Today, Hitler has left the building. A righteous 41 year old ex-cop (now squatter/punk care giver) named Frank ripped his expensive beeswax head right off in protest at the impropriety. But also to win a bet, he finally revealed. (Hey, no one's pure.) His girlfriend vouched that he was normally a swell, peaceful guy but the Furher stuck in his craw.

Der Spiegel, always ready to jump in the fray, hailed his "successful attack on Hitler".

My take? Give me a break. Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, (to say nothing of Idi Amin and Pol Pot) could easily race neck and neck with this dead German dictator. Maybe we should be thinking about the fact that those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it, and hiding effigies is just one way of erasing memories that ought to be broken out in the open and dealt with instead of suppressed.

Inclusion- Tis the Season

photo from bbs website


Ya gotta love it.

We in the early 21st century US really do try to get it right. Aside from bashing Muslims' heads in as opportunities arise, we really do make an official effort not to hurt people's religious feelings. Inclusion is the buzz word.

I promise I won't go into the jihad that the US has against those of the Islamic persuasion- carried out by media hacks and pols alike. I promise that. (Even though Mitt Romney did put himself on the turkey stump when he said he wouldn't appoint a Muslim to a major cabinet post because there just weren't enough Muslims in the voting population to justify it- like there is a huge enough Mormon population to justify a president...) But I digress....

(What the hell- it's my blog...)

Breathe.

OK. So here we are trying to be all sensitive and inclusive in public life on public property. Only somehow the electorate doesn't always get the full impact of the theory behind this.

Let's talk about Green Bay, WI, for example. Now there's a town that theoretically had it all packed in like peanut butter. Their town hall had an uber-inclusive winter holiday display. Creche on the roof of the town hall, Wiccan wreath (surrounding a pentangle) on the peak of the overhang, and, like the three magi, representatives from the Unitarian, Hindu and Buddhist communities came bearing symbols to be hung by the manger with care.

But vandals transhed the wreath and the town council chose to drop the whole thing, except, of course, for the creche. The whole town's in a soup of name-calling and jousting believers now because of it. And the councilman who started the fray made a statement- “I’m trying to take this fight to the people who need to be fought. I’ll keep going on this until this group imposing Madison (liberal town in WI) values crawls back into its hole and never crawls out.”

Merry Christmas

Link

Please note that I'm doing another blog about the making of the book, Sculptural Assassination The link is on the side bar, so come take a gander now and then...

The Irish Famine and the Memorials thereof

Photo from
http://www.janeholtzkay.com/Articles/hunger.html

Wandering around Providence yesterday afternoon, looking for the WWII monument, I ran across a memorial of quite a different sort. It was the city's Irish Famine Memorial, complete with bas relief, Irish pieta, and greetings from Northern Aid, etc. Now I happen to be of the Irish-American persuasion myself, so this sort of thing always interests me, and it was only the third one I've ever seen.

The first, in Boston, right in front of the Borders megabookstore, is, to put it bluntly, beyond the pale, if you get my meaning. It's a bronze cartoon and so appalling that I found I'd been misinterpreting it for years. It's supposed to be the "before and after" of Irish famine refugees in the promised land. But I thought it was middle class WASPs looking down their noses at the newly arrived starving masses, represented by a dying kid, mom, etc. Now, the most touching thing about this Segalesque statue I ever saw was a little kid putting a few cents into the outstretched hand of the dying kid in the statue. Of course, I was sans camera at the time and didn't get a chance to capture it.

The second, in Cambridge, MA, is more of the same ilk. Dying kid in mom's arms, dad on a separate plinth... you walk in between them. I climbed on the pedestal to get a good angle on the anguished maternal side and noticed that someone had stuck a goldfish cracker in the dying kid's hand.

And now this Providence piece. It actually is a Pieta, only with mom holding the nearly naked dying adult son and dad, (presumably it's dad, though I could once again be wrong) fully clothed in clean pressed worker's duds, looking out toward the power plant over in the Jewelry district.

What is it that produces these abortions by some of the most lyrical people on the planet? (So I'm prejudiced. Sue me.) Why do they go to the "bleeding Sacred Heart" school of art when it comes to representing and calling to mind a most tragic affair? Is there a way around it?

I thought about this topic all evening (obviously not enough to do with my life) and decided to A) look up Irish Famine Memorials around the US; and B)compare and contrast these with Jewish Holocaust Memorials.

So this AM I googled "Irish Famine Monuments" and found NYC's Famine Memorial in Battery Park.

Holy shit! They got it right! And now I have to trek west to see this amazing- sounding remembrance to the people of the Emerald Isle who didn't make it through the 19th century. It's really an architectural piece combining structures, rocks, landscape and text. Funereal. Basic. Tragic. It's about feeling and grief- a keening in stone.

More when I've actually seen the piece... but there is apparently hope on the famished horizon.

And, by the bye- don't forget to check my other blog- sculpturalassassination.blogspot.com for updates on the book in progress... New info on the Buddhas has nearly flattened me.

Name that concept!

Photos from www.mi.sanu.ac.yu/vismath/barrallo1/

(Compare and contrast- what are these sculptures saying?)



I just read a fascinating article from the Harare (Zimbabwe) Herald ( thank god for the internet) about translating statues.

The writer said that there are some concepts that can't be conveyed in sculpture and so the pieces need translation for their viewers. "Pierced!" I thought, struck to my new criticism roots. Can this be true?

Now I can understand the fact that people might not recognize or understand why a memorial to a second string Victorian politician should be sitting in the middle of their roundabout. I know that there are plenty of people who don't recognize famous people in bronze. (In the 1930's, for example, the Boston Arts Commission was receiving letters that out-of-towners were mistaking the George Washington in the Public Gardens for Paul Revere). And some of the most amazing bulked up human figures from the third reich and other totalitarian regimes are more interesting when you learn what the sculptor was trying to do with the marble steroid cases.

And there are things like "Tilted Arc", that banished bisector of New York's public space, which no one actually ever "gets". And the ongoing griping and bafflement about a lot of the abstract postmodern school of public art (if nobody knows what it is, nobody can bitch about it). But this article talks about something different.

The writer says that if a person from one culture tries to express a concept that is familiar to her country and not to another, the piece needs a translator. Back to the old "intent vs. interpretation" game. I liked reading it, but once again, I hold to my old dogma- the piece needs to stand on its own. Abstract concepts are, I agree, not always translateable into visual, static forms. But translating them is out of the question. That's an entirely different medium and a thing unto itself. It is translation, not sculpture.

Am I being too abstruse here? I think what I'm trying to say, after all, is that the work is the work. Give it a title if you must, but recognize its limitations or its power and let the damned thing fly on its own.

MLK

photo from the Taipei Times website...


There's news afoot in the public sculpture world about the latest memorial addition to Washington DC's Mall. The honoree is Martin Luther King, Jr. But he's not the source of protest. Everyone pretty much agrees that he's significant enough to be included in the Pantheon. The problem is with the choice of sculptors.

The granite piece is going to be crafted by a Chinese artist by the name of Lei Yixin. He's a "National Treasure" of China- which means that he's so skilled that his nation recognizes him as an asset to be honored. The guy didn't even apply for the commission. He was attending a stone cutting workshop in MN when members of the commission found him and they were so impressed that they ended up offering him the job. He hesitated, but finally accepted.

The buzz began, and earnest members of the public were incensed, especially the sculpting community.

"The sculptor of such an important American hero has to be an American," some cried.

"The sculptor of such an important African-American hero has to be African-American," others responded.

Spare me. I know that some people will be terminally incensed if I point out that MLK didn't confine himself to only African American thinkers when he developed his philosophy and techniques. I believe Gandhi, his inspiration, was from Asia. No one pointed out that satyagraha could only be practiced by those of the great sub-continent. And I don't remember reading that he said "blacks only need apply to create a just American society". I am appalled at the insularity, ignorance and narrow-mindedness of the protesters. Talk about racial prejudice! MLK would be proud of you, guys...

The bewildered Chinese sculptor is reported to have said, "He [MLK] has always dreamed that people from all over the world will not be judged by the color of their skin — that we would all be brothers and sisters and enjoy equal opportunity. Now I have the luck to get this opportunity."

There are, of course, the rumors that the commission did this only so they could wheedle $25 mil toward the monument from Chinese investors if they employed one of their own for the piece. If this is true, why not open the bidding to a Saudi sculptor? $25 mil would be spittin' dough to them...

Serbia, land of the...

The news from Serbia is too good to be true for a change, and you deserve to hear it hear.

After learning the heartwarming news that the Serbs are erecting a bronze of their best friend Bill Clinton in their capital, Pristina, I was bowled over to hear that another American icon will be bringing salvation to the beleaguered nation.

Rocky Balboa is going to rise triumphant in a small town whose name has become synonymous with bad luck. Zitiste, victim of floods, landslides, unemployment and what one news source reports as "diseases on farms"(?) has put its faith in the American boxer. Villager Bojan Marceta, who proposed the idea, explained "I felt as if Rocky had come from our village and had to fight to win his place in society." Gotta love the scrappy guy.

No word from Stallone, but it's too bad the village didn't get the idea when the Philadelphia Museum of Art was trying to foist their relic of the hero's glory days off its steps. I've tried to hunt down info on Boris Staparac, the sculptor, but he doesn't appear on any source that I have in English, except in relation to Rocky.

The village, after the first flush of victory, may find that getting in the news can be a dicey proposition at best. One news source reported that the piece was installed during a music festival, but others assert that Rocky raised his fists during the town's annual chicken fest... And it's fascinating just perusing the headlines from around the world. The NYT says, "Odd News Springs from Serbia", while the striaghtforward Independent from South Africa heads their account "Rocky Makes a Home in Serbia". But the all American 21st century Tampa Bay's (FL) 10.com puts it all in perspective- "Rocky to Help Boost Self-Esteem."

More as news develops...

Update on Too Many Statues?

I would like to apologize for my cursory research on my earlier post about Westminster's decree banning more statues in their bailiwick. I have been researching for the book and find that what they face there is certainly precendented! It seems that Paris (no suprise) faced the same problem in the late 19th century.

The problem was that too many important men demanded too many important tributes, so bronze suits crowded the city streets and parks within an inch of their lives. Paris, it seems, was suffocating.

Although Victor Hugo wrote "War on the Demolishers" in 1832, by 1867 the Academy dubbed Hausmann, the ultimate urban renewal king, the "artiste demolisseur" (artist of demolition). The consensus was that they wanted a wide open city rather than an outdoor municipal museum.

Although he did his best (or worst) to effect the clearances, by 1879, the papers whined about "La Statuemanie" and the fact that there was hardly a space in the city free of the bronze and marble masters that would outlive them all. (Is that what really bothered them???) And even Degas complained, "One puts iron wire around the lawns of public gardens to prevent sculptors from depositing their works therein..."

More as events develop...

Hot off the Press- Alert!

photo from http://www.ellisms.com


OK- for those of you who are passionate about history, sculpture, or preservation (pick one or all of the above) this alert from the folks at Save Outdoor Sculpture


As you may or may not know, the nation is gearing up for Lincoln's bicentennial (The actual date of L's 200th birthday is Feb 12, 2009, just 23 days after W leaves office. There's something, like, symbolic about that- no?) But the official celebrations run from 2008-2010 and to mark the event in grand style, SOS has launched a campaign to save all of the Lincoln monuments and statues in the nation. They even have a list of "needy Abraham Lincoln sculptures" for folks to support.

Per their press release, "According to the Inventory of American Sculpture, Abraham Lincoln is the most honored person in America’s outdoor sculpture. As our nation prepares to celebrate his bicentennial birthday, these memorials will assume increased significance. Citizens looking to commemorate Lincoln’s legacy will turn to statues in town squares and parks, at county courthouses and local high schools, on busy street corners and country roads. These sculptures are tangible reminders of the extraordinary man whose values and courage helped save our union."

This, indeed, is one of the prime purposes of public sculpture. Even though everybody passes by the pieces daily with nary a glance, and morons spray pain them and tweak their noses, they wait for us to remember. So here's the plan-

1) look around and notice any Lincoln sculptures near you;
2) help these guys out by checking out their info at http://www.heritagepreservation.org/SOSUpdate/2006/sp06albc.htm

I thank you.SOS thanks you. Lincoln thanks you. The nation (dare I not to be too grand???) thanks you!

On pets and cemeteries

Just read a story about a library in Ohio that found a pretty important work of art in its collection. It's a statue by Edmonia Lewis, the impressive 19th century sculptor. The piece, called the "Veiled Bride of Spring" was "lost" for a century due to fact that it had shifted owners and by the time it hit the reading rooms, nobody knew what it was all about. But the thing that hit me between the eyes was the sentence about her masterpiece, "The Death of Cleopatra".

"Cleopatra"," the report said, "shared a similar past. Also considered lost for nearly a century, it was serving as a horse's tombstone at the time of its recovery."

Now I've spent a lot of time in cemeteries hunting down memorial art and just last month hung out in Paris' Pet Cemetery, Le Cimetière des chiens d'Asnières-sur-Seine. I thought it would be a change from the staid tombs of Parisians known and unknown and I expected a lot.

It wasn't terribly impressive, but as I squatted before a cat's grave with an Egyptian motif, I got to thinking about how this particular plot of land differs from the biggies to the north and east.

The tombstones were, for the most part, pretty simple with the names and dates and a few heartfelt verses carved on them. "Minouchette, ma cherie. Toujour amour" or some such. One of them, a golden retriever's last bark, held a globe filled with ragged tennis balls in it, obviously detritus of a canine life well-lived. Brought the tears to my eyes, I can tell you. A double grave for some kind of terriers (many of these graves had pix of the inhabitants) was a tiny topiary forest.

"No one has to bury their pet," I thought. "Every pooch and every cat here has someone who really loved them. Paris passed a law in 1898 saying you couldn't throw your pet into the trash and had to bury it 3 feet under, and things were ready to roll. But still, these animals could have been cremated. Their owners didn't have to pay the death tariff. They were, in short, were well-loved. One of the gravestones reads, "Fidèle compagne et seule amie de ma vie errante et desolée" or "Faithful companion and only friend of my wandering, desolate life." Now that's enough to make you throw yourself on the grave and water it with your tears...

Too many statues???

Photo from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Image:et%C3%A9_-_Statue_by_Enzo_Plazzotta_-_Millbank_-_Westminster_-_London_-_240404.jpg


Can you ever have too many public statues?

I was shocked, shocked to discover that the City of Westmister (London, England) thinks you can. They say their bailiwick is absolutely stuffed with the things and they want to put a restriction on any more bronze residents. One of their solutions is to encourage artists to put new monuments up in other, underserved parts of the city and make the new memorials consist of gardens and parks. According to London Life "Councillors are also considering a "saturation zone" in Whitehall where just under half of Westminster's memorials are located." Which, including war memorials and medallions, total 94. We should be so lucky! And in the same space, may I ask, how many tobacconists are there? How many news kiosks?

So what's next? Bussing the ones they've got to quota-ed areas? Hmmmmmmmm.... Which to choose? Who decides? Establish a lottery to host a statue? Will other parts of the city bid for the best? Will there be cat fights to grab the newest monuments? And what happens if artists find other venues more congenial? Will there be a sudden lunge on the part of Westminster to grab a few back? Kidnappings?

I hope they think things through! For a really amusing video on the topic, go to-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/content/articles/2007/06/01/statue_video.shtml

A New Project

(image from tn3-2.deviantart.com a Cyrillic site that I can't decipher...)

I have to admit, I've learned a lot about public sculpture in the years I've been writing this blog. Even though I thought I was savvy before, the stories that have come to light through my research have been pretty amazing.

So I'd like to announce a new project and hope for some input as I go along. I'll be writing a book called (working title) Sculptural Assassination and will focus on instances of iconoclasm throughout history, but more specifically, as they relate to my own experience. ("Whaaaatttt?" you may be asking, slack jawed, scratch-headed...) My definition of iconoclasm, by the bye, is the destruction of works of art for ideological reason, religious, political, social, etc. So if you have any stories you want to share, let me know... I'll research 'em if they interest me...

There's a ton to learn and I've already picked up some books that are blowing me away. I'll share some of the stuff I learn as I go along.

To begin, I feel that every book should have a cover, so I invite you to send in a picture to me to help me make a working cover to hang on my wall to inspire me... Once I've done it, I'll post it on the blog, of course...

Thanks!!!
tapit1@excite.com