From Egypt… the power of the press

OK. So we’ve all heard about the “now you see it, now you don’t” Van Gogh painting theft from the Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Museum in Cairo. The painting, Poppy Flowers, was stolen (for the second time) on Saturday. Then it was reported recovered. Then it was reported that the recovery report was a mistake. The country’s in an uproar when it was discovered that only 7 out of 43 security cameras were functioning and security was- to put it delicately- almost non-existent for the museum’s $1billion collection.

But here’s the underreported tragedy that went along with it-

The media crowd who came to cover the event “stumbled over a statue of Cupid, which shattered on the marble floor of the entrance courtyard, raising cries of despair from museum staff.” according to the  Bloomberg Report. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-22/van-gogh-55-million-poppy-flowers-theft-in-cairo-blamed-on-lax-security.html

An Egyptian source cried out, “This Cupid statue’s value was estimated by millions too considering its history !! Already I do not know what it was doing at the garden when it was supposed to be inside according to those who working at the museum.” http://egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com/2010/08/breaking-news-cupid-is-smashed-in.html

You may note a change of form of this blog. Because life is overtaking me (again) and I feel getting this news to you is more important than writing the deathless prose I usually do about my topics, I’ve decided that for the time being, my entries will be more link and less text…

More later…

Kinetic sculpture

Dutch sculptor Ap Verheggen’s sculpture is beginning to move. He placed the piece, “Dog Sled Riders”, on an iceberg in March to show the world how climate change affects the Inuit way of life. It’s a spare piece, an abstract representation of dog sled hunters on the ice. He intended that, as the iceberg it’s on melts, it will move through space until it drops to the bottom of the sea. Sort of an ephemeral pointer to a global problem.

But Verheggen says that his goal is to remind us that climate change begins with, as well as affects, all of us. “We have to put our energy in solutions. Climate change cannot be stopped. The climate always changes and will keep on changing, these are dynamic processes. Our culture always adapted to these changes, but now we are discussing the causes without looking at the future.”

You can follow the flow of The Dog Sled Riders on  www.coolemotion.org

sculptures on the move

Under the Volcano

I’m knee-deep in hunting down the answer to a most intriguing (and perhaps depressing) question.

What have the effects of the volcanic ash cloud been on public sculptures in Europe? What is being done to protect them?

Any comments or insights would be greatly welcome.

The Layered Look

A few months ago, I was racing uptown to catch an artsy flick at the Lincoln Center Cinemas in NYC when I stopped dead in my tracks in front of the Time Warner Building. Hit the windshield, so to speak. Grabbed my camera and shot.

I’ve been nuts about layered statues ever since I ran into the Arthur Fiedler on Boston’s esplanade in the late 20th century. I had to do a little digging.

These guys are called “Asaf and Yo’ah”. by Israeli artist Boaz Vaadia. Made of three tons of bluestone and bronze with a boulder, they were installed early in 2004. Vaadia came to the US n 1975 and was struck by how intense the city’s connection to its geology is. He found bluestone, slate and rocks found around the city at construction and demolition sites and, when he found out they could be had for the hauling, he instantly invested in a $3 grand forklift as a major art tool. He connects his art with the earth and his figures are as elemental as their components.

But what really fascinated me was a video I just rooted out about his process. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm2ndpGrGSg

It’s a bird, it’s a plane…

I spent some time in NYC lately and one of my destinations was the Gormley installation of 31 life-sized male figures (himself)  in and around Madison Square Park. Called “Event Horizon”, the same installation had created a stir in London when it was therein 2007. The artist said he hoped to do the same in NYC. I tore the map of locations out of the Times and headed south on the downtown train.

These iron and glass fiber guys (complete with casting holes) appear both at ground level and on the tops of buildings around the Square. Some people seem oblivious to them. Others are all about finding them. (I handed my map to a fellow shutter-bug when I was finished). Still others, startled, try to figure them out.  Of course, there are the inevitable interactions that public art screams for.  They (the statues) aren’t great works of art. They aren’t even particularly good sculpture. They’re just jogs to the brain and as such, fill their destiny well.

Today I learned that they’ve garnered some extra attention from the more or less observant public.  According to Artdaily, http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=37491, NYPD has received 10 calls in the past few weeks reporting the presence of jumpers on high places, including one on the venerable Empire State Building which has hosted its share of real jumpers, the last being on March 30.  When the pieces were set up in London, some were on bridges, so I expect that reactions might have been similar. Before they were installed, the NYPD had warned the public about them, and some citizens complained that it might bring the trauma of the 9/11 jumpers back to the apparently mimosan public.The citizens are to be lauded for observance and compassion. I hope this won’t be reason to ban similar high level exhibits in the future.

Gormley ahs won prizes for his infinitely repeating figure installations in the past, but the project of his that I liked the best involved the famous Fourth Plinth in London. This empty plinth in London’s Trafalgar  Square has been host to revolving installations over the past decade. When Gormely took a shot of it, he arranged for citizens and celebrities to each take an hour on the plinth around the clock for 100 days. It would be a great idea in NYC as homage to her fave adopted son- Warhol.

Fire in the snow

It’s been 20 years since Salvador Dali died, and what better way to celebrate his life, death, and vision than by planting his sculptures in the snow?
Two weeks ago, the Dali Universe and Stratton museum installed 14 pieces of his monumental sculpture in the classy ski town of Courchevel, France. Though most of them are in the town itself, two, Woman Aflame and Alice in Wonderland, will be plopped on top of the slopes themselves for maximum (if you’ll excuse the expression) exposure. It’s surreal (just as Dali would have hoped) watching the video of transporting the pieces by helicopter to the moutaintops- check out  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Xo5eBJUPog

Uttar Pradesh and the stone elephants

Of course given my current state of preoccupation, I couldn’t resist this story of stone pilgrim status. 

 There’s a certain amount of outrage as to the fact that Uttar Pradesh is planning on spending more for a memorial of stone elephants in a preserve than they shell out to care for the real thing. (The state only has 150 pachyderms- about 10 of them wild- to spend a few bucks on. The stone elephants are a one time outlay, true, but considering there are 60 of them they almost double the population…)   See http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/enviornment/uttar-pradesh-spends-more-on-elephants-statues-than-live-ones_100246947.html

But no public statue story comes without a twist. It seems that these pink elephants aren’t just someone’s idea of a lovely sculptural tribute to one of the most revered animals in India. Chief Minister Mayawati, whose dream they are and who commissioned them, just happens to be a member of the BSP political party. And the symbol of that party??? Try- elephants!!! (Think Republicans installing bronze elephants in every city or Democratic donkeys springing up in the Grand Canyon Park). The BSP swears it has nothing to do with the party, and that elephants with raised trunks are indeed the Indian symbol of hospitality, and yet one is driven to wonder. 

Though the Apex (think Supreme) Court ordered a halt to the construction of the memorials on 9/8/09, it took a few days for the work to wind down. The memorial sites are empty now and waiting…  And the ban has caused another hardship of its own.  Around 5000 stonemasons and carvers, etc. are involved in the project and have come from other parts of the nation to get the work. As long as the project is on hold, they’re without their desperately needed pay checks. What do you do with that?

So from an environmental outrage to political skulduggery to economic displacement, the beat goes on. Public sculpture ain’t only what it appears to be…

Trade Center Scrap metal

Today’s New York Times ran a front page story on the scrap metal left from 9/11 that’s available to any official memorial makers for that event. (See: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/07/nyregion/07steel.html?_r=1&hp )  The Port Authority of NY and NJ officially own the famous twisted girders, and, although they’re pretty agreeable on sharing it (for free, it appears!) they’ve got plenty more where they came from. And approved recipients can get any size piece they need, so they don’t have to clear the decks to use a giant multi-tonned piece of metal in their work of art.

Which leads to general musing on the topic of War (and other major civic events) Memorials. I did a short doc called Frozen Gloryexploring why war memorials look the way they do. WWI memorials, after all, look nothing like WWII monuments, Civil War memorials, or the ubiquitous geometric Vietnam War memorials that sprouted in the aftermath of that conflict. I wondered why, and found that it had a lot to do with the zeitgeist of the war and the general esthetic of the times.

But the more I researched, the more I thought  about the national amnesia that surrounds these memorials. War Monuments (that really took off in this country after the Civil War when money started to flow and the ideals of the City Beautiful movement grabbed hold) , let’s face it, become invisible unless they have certain elements. How many of the Civil War’s “tin soldier” monuments do people notice as they go about their business? How many local monuments do you remember or even see daily? Rolls of honor, listing the dead from any conflict, are- not to put too fine a point on it- dead. Few people outside the family (and sometimes not even them) knows or cares about the names. After the generation that raised the memorial has gone to ground, it means little to those who come after. Unless-

1)   The monument is, in itself, an outstanding piece of art. The art, rather than the sentiment, is most important. Art commissions have recognized this for around 100 years in the USA. As a matter of fact, there were 3 separate Arts Commissions conferences held in the US in 1919 to stave off the “dreadful monuments that followed the Civil War”. 

2)  The monument should be on the site of the event. Obviously, in the case of most of our wars, this would send us travelling around the world, but places like Gettysburg and Lexington Green in MA can sustain the pieces that call attention to their events. Obviously, in the case of 9/11, the most effective memorial is the one that will eventually (it will, won’t it???) stand in lower Manhattan.   

3)  The monument should incorporate a relic of the actual event. In this case, a piece of the twisted girders will do perfectly. Those communities that take the Port Authority up on its offer to supply an actual artifact are boosting their chances that people will actually remember 9/11 in the future.

I could go on forever on the topic of monuments and memorials, including the difference between the terms themselves, which I’ve used interchangeably here, but I’ll leave this posting to this most basic set of observations and hope for the best.

Nude statues! Nude!

One of the things about my tribe that that sticks in my craw the most is its horror at seeing a naked human body. (Or even a semi-naked human body, or even a naked human semi-body) . I am constantly amazed at the violent reaction this draws from folks wherever they may be.  Today’s story comes from Silt, CO, somewhere southwest of Denver… 

Two weeks ago, the town unveiled a new ornament to its traffic roundabout. Approved by the powers that be, it (appropriately enough for a Rocky Mountain burg) featured a climber scaling a rock face. Elemental. Raw rock. Nearing the top of its climb, the faceless, frontless, human scaler had- horrors- no clothes on!!!! Anyone could see its butt protruding as he (or perhaps she by the look of it) lifted himself up near the top. (See http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20090902/NEWS/909019972/1058) 

Certainly this could not offend any sane person. But, then- someone felt compelled to pin a cloth across the offending body part.  I’m not even going there with this comment by a local- “It’s not just me — there’s a lot of people. And it’s not the sculpture — it’s the one part — the naked man climbing the wall.” Jacobs, who is a plumber, said it was the “crack” of the sculpted figure’s buttocks that disturbed him.” A plumber said this?

I hope it was a joke. Considering how twisted the folks of this nation have been in the past, though, I fear the worst. Consider, after all, Att’y. General Ashcroft’s “drape across the naked Justice’s breast” stunt in 2002 (see http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002/01/29/statues.htm ), or the south Florida’s brouhaha in July over an abstract nude near a school that led one parent to complain, “My daughter has been joking about it. She shouldn’t be talking to me about this.” (see http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/palm-beach/sfl-west-delray-nude-sculpture-p072309,0,5834016.story) 

In a 2005 controversy in Loveland, CO, the heart (or…. something of the matter) may have been struck-  “Dan Danowski, a local Mormon bishop, said the sculpture causes immoral thoughts. “My main concern is those who drive past and the things that will take place in their minds,” he said.

Sigh.

What do we do about our adolescent nudity angst? Education, I guess, is supposed to help. Maturity would be good. Or maybe it’s just time to move…

 

The Grand Washington Shuffle

For those of you are are unfamiliar with it, the Statuary Hall in our Nation’s capitol is a pretty impressive sight. It’s a truly democratic forum for bronze  and marble citizens of the various states. Like Senators, there are two of them per state, and the theory is that they’ll represent the flower of each state’s citizenry.  (See http://www.aoc.gov/cc/art/nsh/index.cfm?sort=theyear for more info and a list of who’s who in the collection.) As we gained states and statues over our 200+ year history, the hall (which used to be the House Chambers, )began to look like somebody’s attic. Notables were stacked three deep and you could hardly get a decent view of who was who. And, tragically, the law that created it didn’t allow for substitutes.

But that all began to change in 1933, when House Resolution 47 decreed that some of the crowd could slide over a bit and be displayed elsewhere,like in corridors in the area. Showed them all off to their best advantage.

The statues originally  started going in in 1876 and, as with all things that span centuries, some of the flowers are pretty wilted. States have, from time to time, realized they had no idea who those guys were. And, also, we’ve become sensitive to a lot of other facets in public life. Generals and suits of every strip came under question as we opened our eyes and noticed the underrepresented around us. In 2000, Public Law lifted the “in for life” laws and states have been doing the Washington shuffle ever since.

The latest of these is in the great state of Ohio. Seems as though one of their national reps, William Allen, was a pro-slavery guy and made some incendiary statements about blacks during his term. We don’t cotton to that these days, and the state has a few contenders in mind to replace him, like Annie Oakley (her reputation has, after all, survived for 100 years, she is a woman, and she could really  please the gun lobby), Thomas Edison who lived there for seven years, native sons the Wright Brothers, and ummm…. Dean Martin????  Whoever wins will join President Garfield (remember him?) in that marble hall.

Some of the changes are pretty impressive. Helen Keller is replacing Confederate General Jabez Monroe Curry. Reagan will replace California’s Thomas Starr King and of course, Eisenhower bounced Kansas’ George Washington Glick. See http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ieaxmd9kv2fdR8vp3G0vbt7_5kmgD9A2GO701 for more info.

We don’t sweep native American’s under the rug any more either. Po’pay, New Mexico’s entry, joined five others, including King Kamehameha I (1969),  Sakakawea (2003), Sequoyah (1917), Washakie(2000), and Sarah Winnemucca (2005).

So the immutable statues and reputations that fill the hallowed halls are (it must be admitted) just as vulnerable to scandal and revision as anything else in that city of politics. Stay tuned….